Ultrawideband spins it wheels

When the FCC gave its blessing to unlicensed ultrawideband, or UWB, technology in 2002, it envisioned a plethora of potential uses, ranging from broadband access to the Internet to radar imaging of objects buried underground or behind walls. It also recognized the ways in which UWB could benefit police, fire and rescue personnel to enable covert, secure operations.

Six years later, UWB is finally set to explode in the commercial market — a development that has a direct correlation to the technology’s potential in the public-safety sector. Earlier this year, the IEEE task force considering UWB proposals overwhelmingly voted to disband the standards process after failing to reach a consensus on a single IEEE 802.15.3a standard. The fight between the UWB Forum and the WiMedia Alliance over standards has been raging since 2002, and the end of this war now leaves the two sides to battle it out in a market-driven free-for-all. Most of the companies adopted the multiband orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) version of UWB and joined the WiMedia Alliance to build and promote its UWB technology. Dozens of companies support this standard, and a significant amount of silicon has now become available from companies like Alereon, Staccato, WiQuest, Wisair and others. The direct sequence mode of OFDM for UWB is primarily championed by chipmaker Freescale.

“The collapse of the UWB standards process was widely seen as a major faux pas,” said Stuart Carlaw, principal analyst for ABI Research. “But those inside the industry viewed it as the shackles being removed.”

As a result, analysts now have high expectations for the technology. ABI Research forecasts nearly 300 million UWB shipments in 2011. In-Stat Research said that with manufacturers beginning to ship UWB chipsets in the second half of this year, it expects shipments to total 289 million by 2010. Personal computers will be the initial and largest volume market for UWB wireless chipsets, with PC vendors shipping more than 125 million desktop and laptop PCs with UWB capability by 2010. And analyst firm visiongain predicts the number of UWB-enabled devices will increase by more than 400% year-to-year through 2008, affecting the prospects for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and USB technologies in the PC sector.

What is UWB technology’s draw? The basic concept of the technology is to develop, transmit and receive an extremely short burst of radio frequency energy. That means it is a cheap, low-power solution that will enable electronic devices in homes and offices to be connected efficiently without wires. Computer- and electronics-industry heavyweights, such as Intel, Sony and Toshiba, are anxious to see UWB replace almost every data cable in the residential market because it would revolutionize home media networking by assuming such tasks as distributing high-definition (HD) TV signals from a receiver to multiple television sets and connecting printers to computers.

The Bluetooth special interest group (SIG) recently announced its selection of the multiband OFDM (M-OFDM) version of UWB for its next level of physical layer options, which will increase the transmission speed of Bluetooth significantly, from 3 Mb/s to 480 Mb/s.

“Right now, the big focus is on applications that replace the USB,” said Colin Macnab, CEO of Artimi, a UWB semiconductor manufacturer focused on developing a single chip for WiMedia-based systems. “The next market will be replacing video cables, and the third one will be incorporating UWB into hand-held products. The adoption by Bluetooth has the same nice dovetailing effect.”

The beauty of UWB is its ability to coexist with existing radio systems with minimal or no interference. “This coexistence means that there is the advantage of avoiding expensive spectrum licensing fees,” said Sherman Fridman, a visiongain analyst. “The array of potential uses for UWB in the home, particularly in a multimedia/entertainment environment, will spur the uptake of this technology.”

Because UWB systems transmit low-power streams of short pulses over a large swath of spectrum, the signal can penetrate crowded and noisy radio environments, which translates into a higher quality of service without signal fading. Gigabit speeds can be accomplished within 10 meters, but turning down the data rates to even 500 Mb/s can increase the range to almost 50 meters.

These characteristics bode well for the public-safety community. Police, fire and emergency services personnel can take advantage of UWB-enabled trunked radios that one day will be capable of sending data, pictures and video, as well as enabling voice over IP. In addition, a small number of companies are focusing on lower-speed services that have application-awareness, allowing for radar-distancing accuracy within inches.

That ability translates into a whole new level of visibility for first responders by enabling them to find victims trapped in a burning house, locate hostages and hostage-takers behind walls and find objects — such as explosive mines — buried in the ground. UWB technology also could be used to detect weapons on individuals and bombs in luggage and packages, heightening security at airports and other public buildings.

Several companies have developed, or are in the process of developing, products targeted to the military and first responder sectors. Time Domain’s UWB chipset targets three core technologies: wireless communications, precision location and tracking and high-definition portable radar. The company recently received two patents for sense-through-the-wall radar technologies.

Aether Wire is developing a single-chip UWB transceiver for low-power communication and location in mobile ad-hoc networks. Current applications include personnel tracking for the military and first responder sectors. The company is seeking $10 million in venture capital funding to accelerate development of a single-chip localizer targeted at the mass market.

Multispectral Solutions also is developing UWB systems for communications, radar and geo-positioning. Applications include high-speed communications networks and data links; collision- and obstacle-avoidance radars; precision geo-location systems for personnel location, asset tracking and inventory control; and intelligent transportation systems. The company’s clients include a number of military and government entities, primarily for its tracking system.

“The public-safety market is not that big, but virtually everything we do is dual-use in the sense that it is applicable across the military, which is a huge market,” said Adrian Jennings, chief technology officer for Time Domain. “There is plenty of money to be made. If we felt like the first responder market was the only market, it would be tough to do and make a good living.”

Therein lies the age-old problem for the first responder sector when it comes to attracting technology innovators: Investment is high and sales cycles are lengthy for those targeting the sector. In contrast, the return on investment is significantly higher in the commercial sector. That means public-safety entities must wait until manufacturers make their money from the commercial sector before they splinter off into other markets.

“There is an economic impediment to focusing on [public-safety] market unless you can do it at the same time that you are targeting the commercial market with slight modifications,” said Bruce Watkins, president and chief operating officer with Pulse Link, a UWB chipmaker focused on wireless in-home entertainment services. “It’s not that the intent or the design hasn’t been there, but it’s just getting to the point where you can make it an economically viable proposition. It’s just too hard to spin your wheels with no commitments.”

For this reason, Pulse Link abandoned the first responder market in early 2005 to focus on the home entertainment market. Prior to the shift in market strategy, the company touted the use of UWB as a way to enable cognitive radios — which have been held up by the lack of analog-to-digital converters and digital-to-analog converters — and had announced its first-generation UWB radio designed for laboratory use. Moreover, Pulse Link had planned to unveil a chipset version of the radio capable of delivering high-speed data services such as multimedia and HDTV streams at wireless local area network ranges.

“Public safety could definitely benefit from UWB technology, but we’re probably talking about a 2008 or 2009 scenario,” Watkins said. “Once you have something accepted, and the adoption process is taking place in even a few public-safety agencies, the market volume is definitely there. … It’s just not organized enough at this point to market it as a primary focus.”

In the meantime, Time Domain is seeing significant traction with its Through Wall Sensing technology. Working with commercial vendors that have developed products for the technology, the company has effectively allowed a device to send millions of UWB pulses per second, creating a signal that, in most circumstances, can penetrate most common building materials. Overseas security forces and many anti-terrorist groups have bought these motion-detector devices, called RadarVision.

Other applications Time Domain is developing around Through Wall Sensing technology include personnel accountability systems.

“The Holy Grail is a precision 3-D tracking system that tells a commander where everyone on the scene is, providing two-way communications and beaming back life signs and oxygen status. The military wants the exact same thing,” Jennings said.

Time Domain also has developed a prototype designed to detect people breathing under 10 to 20 feet of rubble. The radar would then determine the depth of a victim, while a tracking system would identify the victim’s position on the rubble pile so that a rescue team would know where to dig — a valuable capability in any major disaster.

One of Time Domain’s biggest fans in the first responder sector is Chesterville County, Va., which loans its system to neighboring jurisdictions. Chesterville County has deployed RadarVision in several high-risk situations, including one where an armed assailant was barricaded and holding hostages, and another where an armed suspect wanted by police was hiding in a mobile home.

“There is never a S.W.A.T. team that doesn’t immediately want a Through Wall radar,” Jennings said.

But wanting and having the wherewithal to make the purchase are two entirely different things, as funding represents still another age-old issue that promises to retard the development and deployment of UWB technologies targeted to the first responder sector. Recognizing the problem, Time Domain has instituted national training centers and leasing programs to help jurisdictions defray the cost. The devices also can be purchased via Homeland Security grants.

Time Domain says it is currently looking to license the technology to major vendors on an OEM basis so they can develop products. A prototype has been available for a year. The federal government typically underwrites these types of applications, but funding has been pulled because of the Iraq war. Dollars are being spent on maintenance and equipment instead of R&D, which has forced the company to look for commercial partners instead, Jennings said.

Public-safety UWB applications