Iterative ("Turbo") multiuser detectors for impulse radio systems

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in multiple access communication systems that spread their transmitted energy over very large bandwidths. These systems, which are referred to as ultra wide-band (UWB) systems, have various advantages over narrow-band and conventional wide-band systems. The importance of multiuser detection for achieving high data or low bit error rates in these systems has already been established in several studies. This paper presents iterative (“turbo”) multiuser detection for impulse radio (IR) UWB systems over multipath channels. While this approach is demonstrated for UWB signals, it can also be used in other systems that use similar types of signaling. When applied to the type of signals used by UWB systems, the complexity of the proposed detector can be quite low. Also, two very low complexity implementations of the iterative multiuser detection scheme are proposed based on Gaussian approximation and soft interference cancellation. The performance of these detectors is assessed using simulations that demonstrate their favorable properties.