Rake receiver for ultra wide bandwidth communications systems

An apparatus for detecting a transmitted radio signal, comprising:

• a front end to convert a received version of the transmitted radio signal into an electrical signal;
• a programmable pulse generator to generate a sequence of pulses;
• a demultiplexer connected to an output of the programmable pulse generator to generate a plurality of the sequence of pulses;
• a pulse sequence controller to adjust a timing of each sequence of pulses;
• a plurality of rake fingers, each rake finger to process the electrical signal in parallel, and each rake finger further comprising:
• a multiplier connected to an output of the front end and to an output of the demultiplexer to generate a signal functionally related to a product of the output of the front end and the output of the programmable pulse generator;
• a low-pass filter to filter an output of the multiplier;
• and
• an adjustable weight block to scale an output of the low-pass filter;
• and
• a weight controller to adjust weights for each adjustable weight block in each rake finger;
• and
• a summing block configured combine an output of each rake finger to recover a signal corresponding to the transmitted radio signal.

A method for detecting a transmitted radio signal, comprising:

• converting a received version of the transmitted radio signal into an electrical signal;
• processing the electrical signal in parallel in a plurality of rake fingers, the parallel processing further comprising:
• generating a sequence of pulses with adjustable timing;
• multiplying the sequence of pulses with the electrical signal;
• low-pass filtering a signal produce by the multiplying;
• scaling the filtered signal by an adjustable weight;
• and
• summing the scaled signal to recover a signal corresponding to the transmitted radio signal.