Impact of confined environments on WiMedia UWB systems

Abstract

This paper explores the performance of a commercial WiMedia Multi-Band OFDM Ultrawideband development kit in a confined environment. It confirms previous predictions that the forward error correction schemes of WiMedia systems might not be sufficient for confined environments with a high number of multipaths. A carefully designed environment is shown to be able to alleviate the issue and improve the performance by reducing the packet-error rates. Analysis of packet-error-rates obtained for various antenna orientations and polarisations enables us to propose design rules to assist deployment of WiMedia Multi-Band OFDM Ultrawideband wireless systems in confined environments.