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UWB: ULTRA WIDE BAND

UWB delivers broadband wireless communications without using radio waves on specific spectrum bands. Data is transmitted using time and amplitude-modulated pulses of energy, less than one nanosecond in duration, across a wide swath of frequencies.
Unlike conventional radio systems that operate within a narrow bandwidth, such as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi (802.11b or 802.11a) , UWB operates across a wide range of frequency spectrum by transmitting a series of very narrow and low-power pulses.

The idea is to make it possible to do things like stream high-definition television signals throughout the home, send video shot on a digital recorder at 480 megabits per second, or connect a digital music player to a car's stereo system.

"The wireless telegraph is not difficult to understand. The ordinary telegraph is like a very, very long cat. You pull the tail in New York, and it meows in Los Angeles. The wireless is the same, only without the cat."
Albert Einstein

"Modern wireless communication employs an RF carrier that, much like the copper wire of the telegraph, serves little purpose other than to convey the data. UWB gets rid of the cat and leaves the meow."
Jon Adams, Motorola, Inc.

July 2004 Update

The next big thing is actually ultrawide
Boston Globe Article
The Freescale Semiconductor division of Motorola has developed ultrawideband (UWB) technology for sending data wirelessly at 110Mbps and plans for 1Gbps transmission in 2005.
UWB technology is currently hobbled by regulatory challenges and a long-running clash between two incompatible systems.

Main characteristincs of UWB:

UWB Overview
Can coexist with carrier frequency uses without interference. Ultrawideband works by broadcasting over a much larger chunk of the radio spectrum, so even a low-powered ultrawideband radio signal can carry huge amounts of data.
Wireless transmission rates of 500 megabits are possible, with an eventual capacity in the gigabit range
Penetrates walls and obstacles better than existing technologies. The signal can penetrate solid objects, so police forces and armies use the technology in radar systems that can see through walls.
Delivers positional accuracy on UWB-enabled devices to within one-centimeter resolution
UWB uses far less power than Bluetooth devices and sends vastly more data. As Martin Rofheart said, UWB is "Bluetooth on steroids".
Ultra Wideband (UWB) allows a system to operate across a range of frequency bands while not interfering with existing communication systems. This is because it uses very low transmit power, often in the picosecond [one trillionth (10-12) of a second.] but can still maintain a high data rate. It operates in the time domain rather than the frequency domain, with its signals consisting of high-speed electromagnetic pulses rather than sine waves. This means that the waves traverse many frequencies unimpeded and unnoticed. Regulatory approval for selected use has already been granted in the USA (3.1 GHz to 10.6 GHz) and approval in Europe and Asia is expected soon.
ABI Report
Allied Business Intelligence (ABI) forecasts the total global shipments for UWB-enabled electronics and chipsets under the moderate scenario could reach to 45.1 million units by 2007, with resulting revenues of $1.39 billion by the year 2007. These projections include shipments into market segments including communications, imaging, vehicles, locators and military and government use.

Broadband UWB scenarios (up to 500Mbps)

by Roberto Vitalini, August 08, 2003

Military Purposes: Xybernaut UWB kit where soldiers make their video streams available in short range to their peers. Support up to 200 simultaneous streams on P2P network,
Data available: Position of peer + video stream from his viewpoint
The result is an enhanced reality view as an overlay image on your
head-mounted monitor... or projected directly onto the retina.
Same concept can be applied to fireman and police task forces.
Knowledge management
In the future corporations might leverage the wearable / handheld devices to record live content (audio/video) and store it wirelessly on a server. The stored sequences will be enriched with XML metadata extrapolated from the audio track. With a UWB enabled handheld the process of dumping the recorded sequences on a company server will be done 50 times faster than on standard WLan. "Just pass by the UWB receiver when exiting the building..."

The Players:

Xtreme Spectrum
Time Domain
As of March 2003, the Company holds over 260 patents awarded or filed worldwide.
Larry Fullerton was awarded his first UWB patent in 1987, when he founded Time Domain
The PulsON 300 has been designed to deliver in excess of 100 Mbps, with scalability up to 500 Mbps.
Pulselink Inc.
Pulse-Link is developing UWB technology that adds 1Gbps of new downstream data capacity to a cable TV connection, and 480Mpbs of new upstream capacity on existing cables at the fraction of the price of fiber to the home: $100 per customer vs. $3,700.
uwb
uwb planet