A 6.5-to-10GHz IEEE 802.15.4/4z-Compliant 1T3R UWB Transceiver
Run Chen, Yuzhong Xiao, Yonggang Chen, Hua Xu, Peng Yu, Peng Qi, Xian Li, Xiaofeng Guo, Jianlong Huang, Nansong Li, Xueqing Hu, Rongde Ou, Wenzhe Liu, Bei Chen, Wen Zhang, Xiaofeng Xin, Bingcai Zhao, Zhenqi Chen
Abstract
Ultra-wideband (UWB) technology differentiates itself from other wireless connectivity techniques, such as WiFi and Bluetooth, by providing centimeter-level location accuracy due to its impulse-radio operation. This unique feature draws much interest in smartphones, smart homes, intelligent vehicles, AR/VR, and loT applications since accurate ranging/positioning adds a new dimension to existing wireless communication functions. The recently released IEEE 802.15.4z enhances UWB PHYs to increase the integrity and accuracy of ranging measurement and specifies a security extension for secure ranging [1]. Not many prior works have reported standard-compliant system-level UWB solutions except that some building blocks were discussed, such as coherent transmitters [2], [3]. An integrated UWB transceiver was reported in [4], which contains one transmitter and one receiver. However, the 1T1R architecture must switch between antennas to enable a phase-difference-of-arrival (PDoA) measurement, a primary use case for smartphone applications. Additional switches bring more insertion loss at the RF front-end. Moreover, the ranging time increases since it must measure multiple times, introducing accumulated timing error that significantly degrades the positioning accuracy.