ULTRA WIDE BAND BASE BAND RECEIVER

A base band receiver apparatus comprising an RF front end section, a pulse detection unit wherein modulated, ultra-short spread spectrum pulses are detected, and a data recovery unit wherein clock and data recovery from the detected pulses are carried out. The RF front end includes an antenna and circuitry for filtering and amplifying RF signals received by the antenna. The pulse detection unit preferably includes a tunnel diode or Schottky diode which rectifies the incoming voltage signals from the RF front end and provides a power envelope, a high pass filter which removes residual DC offset from the voltage signals, and a comparator which provides threshold voltage detection. The data unit includes a clock recovery function for generating master clock timing information from the detected pulse stream, a phase offset detector for determining delays associated with pulsed data transmission from other non-master networked devices, and a data recovery function for determining digital values for incoming signals according to timing information from the clock recovery function and phase offset information from the phase offset detector.