A low-power robust GFSK demodulation technique for WBAN applications

Abstract

This paper presents a low-power Gaussian frequency shift keying (GFSK) demodulation technique for wireless body area network (WBAN) applications. The demodulator is composed of a digital pulse generator (DPG), a low-pass filter (LPF), a band-pass filter (BPF), and a hysteresis comparator. The robustness under frequency deviations is realized by a DPG, which outputs an optimized pulse width insensitive to variations of process, voltage, and temperature (PVT). The demodulator is designed with 0.18 μm CMOS technology, and the input testing GFSK signal is 200 kHz, with a data rate of 100 kb/s and a modulation index of 1.0. Simulation results show that the minimum input signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is 18 dB for 0.1% bit error rate (BER), which falls in the same level with state-of-the-art. Nevertheless, the proposed demodulator can tolerate -15%~+10% frequency deviation, and consumes only 0.52 mA under 1.8 V supply.