In ultra-wideband impulse radio communications, process, voltage, and temperature variations may impact the operation of emitters by modifying the emitted power spectral density. In order to compensate the impact of such variations and to respect the spectral emission masks, self-calibration systems able to estimate the output power spectral density have to be integrated in ultra-wideband impulse radio transmitters. In this paper, a new power spectral density estimation method for ultra-wideband impulse radio signals is presented. Unlike the discrete Fourier transform classically used to estimate the power spectral density, the proposed method, which is based on the measurement of the time varying envelope and instantaneous frequency of the emitted pulse, preserves a link between the time and the frequency domain thanks to a piece-wise approximation of these waveforms. This time-to-frequency link enables a straightforward pulse shape control by using simple control methods and allows to comply with spectral masks required by ultra-wideband communication regulations and standards such as the IEEE 802.15.4a. Thus, both envelope and instantaneous frequency extraction techniques are introduced for acquisition of these time domain waveforms in ultra-wideband impulse radio domain. The proposed techniques are validated and allow to consider future hardware implementation in order to build on-chip calibration systems for ultra-wideband transmitters. © 2004-2012 IEEE.