Simulation of quantization noise effects on the performance of a wireless preamble detector and demonstration of a functional FPGA prototype

Abstract

This thesis describes the implementation of the physical layer for an experimental low-power wireless communication device. The system utilizes differential coherent correlation and threshold-based detection to produce a robust random-access packet-based communications protocol. Prior to implementing the system in hardware, the detection algorithm was rigorously simulated with a software model in C. The simulations revealed the tradeoffs between the packet miss performance and different system parameters such as input bit precision and threshold value. Having determined a suitable configuration, the detection algorithm was implemented on an FPGA platform. The focus of the FPGA design was on throughput and resource utilization. The final system utilizes approximately 6% of the slices available on a Xilinx Virtex II XC2V8000 FPGA and has a throughput of about 5 MChips/Second.