Detector for time-hopped impulse radio

A hostile detector for interception of time-hopped ultra-wide band (TH-UWB) impulse radio transmissions. Synchronization of the hostile detector to the transmitter is not assumed. The detector includes respective parallel matched filters applied to respective time-delayed portions of the TH UWB impulse radio signal. Each time-delayed portion has a duration corresponding to the duration of the pulses. The parallel matched filters provide respective analog output signals. A function selects one of the respective analog output signals that is a maximum among the respective analog output signals. An analog-to-digital converter digitizes the selected one of the respective analog output signals to provide a digitized output signal. A polyphase finite impulse response (FIR) filter is applied to the digitized output signal. A transmission is detected in case the output of the polyphase FIR filter exceeds a decision threshold, which is based on a false alarm rate.