Recently, ultra-wideband (UWB) technology based on the transmission of short duration pulses has gained much interest for its application to wireless communications. This thesis covers a range of topics related to the analysis of indoor UWB channels for communications and to system level design issues for UWB receivers. Measurement based UWB small scale modeling and characterization efforts as well as UWB communications system analysis and simulation are presented.

Relevant background material related to UWB communications and wireless channel modeling is presented. The details of the small scale channel modeling work, including statistical characterization and potential models, are discussed. A detailed analysis of the CLEAN algorithm, which was used to process all the measurement data, is also given, and some limitations of the algorithm are presented.

The significance of the channel impulse response model chosen for the simulation of UWB communications systems is also evaluated. Three traditional models are found to be useful for modeling NLOS UWB channels, but not LOS channels. A new model for LOS UWB channels is presented and shown to represent LOS channels much more accurately than the traditional models.

Receiver architectures for UWB systems are also discussed. The performance of correlation receivers and energy detector receivers are compared as well as Rake diversity forms of each of these types to show tradeoffs in system complexity with performance. Interference to and by UWB signals is considered. A narrowband rejection system for UWB receivers is shown to offer significant system improvement is the presence of strong interferers.