System and method of performing channel sounding for modeling ultrawideband radio frequency channels

Abstract

A system and method perform channel sounding for modeling ultrawideband RF channels. The method includes modulating an ultrawideband RF signal with a sounding waveform including streaming data with conforming sounding symbols including no gaps and having zero signal phase at the boundaries; receiving, digitizing and performing digital down conversion of the ultrawideband RF signal to obtain a baseband digitized signal that includes the streaming data; converting the streaming data into packets based on a notional start time, where each packet is formed of at least two consecutive conforming sounding symbols; performing coherent averaging of the packets; determining an equalized CFR and an equalized CIR for each coherently averaged packet; modeling an ultrawideband RF channel or sub-band of the ultrawideband RF channel using the equalized CIR and/or the equalized CFR, and converting the modeled ultrawideband RF channel or sub-band into a sparse tap-delay channel model for each coherently averaged packet.