The book you are holding is the result of 5 years of cooperation between a PhD researcher
and her advisor. It was a rather exceptional cooperation, one where the technical and
strategic thinking flowed quite easily in the same direction yet remained very complimentary.
This was probably caused by a similar mindset in two individuals with a different
background and experience. Combine this with an infinite eagerness to learn, solve, and
create, and you can move mountains.
The result is a nonclassic research outcome. It is characterized more by width than by
depth. We handle the design of a low-power pulsed UWB based wireless communication
and ranging system in all of its aspects and abstractions levels. We have tried to find the
right balance between generality and a concrete application. Therefore, the techniques
and methods we describe are not limited to the application domain of UWB or sensor
networks. Yet, we did not want to write a pure methodology book decoupled from any
application or circuit at the risk of being generic and possibly irrelevant. What you hold
in your hands is thus a journey starting from the optimal selection of the communication
technique, going over optimized acquisition and synchronization algorithms via optimally
flexible architectures, ending in a verified silicon implementation.We spent a lot of effort
in defining what the optimal degree of flexibility of a system is, and, for a given application,
how this can be applied to find the best architecture. Apart from the architectures
and circuits themselves, this is the most important part of the book.