Ultra Wideband Systems
Ultra Wideband (UWB) techniques are viewed by many companies as having the potential to combine high resolution for geolocation with communication for low cost and low power consumption. The task group of the High Data Rate section of the Wireless Personal Access Network standard (802.15.3a) starts working on the standard for alternative physical layer for piconets of 10 meter range and for a minimum data rate of 110Mbps. Furthermore a group of interest is gathering companies to create a study group for low data rate applications (802.15.4IGa).
Background & Objective: In February 2002, FCC adopted a First Report and Order that permits the use of UWB devices. Radar and imaging companies were waiting for this decision for several years in order to commercialize their products and to look for new applications, including for short range communications. The low power consumption of UWB devices opens the door to applications requiring batteries such as storage data devices. Furthermore, the data rates which are considered by the task group of 802.15.3a allow several new applications like wireless Digital TV, high definition MPEG2 motion picture transferring, DVD playback and DV Camcorder. The main objectives are to influence IEEE standard activities in the area of Wireless Personal Area Network, to design a transceiver for communication with high data rates and to prototype UWB radios for target applications.
Technical Discussion: There are several different techniques under the name Ultra Wideband. A train of very narrow pulses using a very wide bandwidth is one of them. It gives an efficient way to combat multipaths in indoor environments and provide a high time resolution for tracking, geolocation and imaging. But multiband systems with frequency hopping sequences using up converted pulses or OFDM symbols are also considered. The main difficulty is to generate a signal conforming to the power limitations from FCC and at the same time to be able to achieve high data rate for a reasonable price.
Outside Collaborations: This project is performed in collaboration with the Georgia Institute of Technology and Princeton University.
Contacts:
Andreas F. Molisch
Jinyun Zhang
Technology Areas:
Digital Communications
Networks
Modification Date: September 12, 2007
