Thanks for the heads up about this Tim, I attended the demonstration and have blogged my experience below:
The three main technologies on display from the half-dozen companies represented where: high-speed wireless multimedia, ground penetrating radar, and stealthy radio communications.
For those who don't know, UWB is a technique to deliver data over an extremely wide spectrum. When I mean wide, here is an example: 802.11b uses a spread spectrum of 2.400 to 2.483Ghz; UWB uses between something obscene like a 3Ghz -10Ghz spread. It is a carrier-less system that looks like noise to the rest of the world. Since it doesn't need to "tune" to a specific frequency, the chips use very low power, and are very cheap. The antenna is a simple flat panel (<1" square) since it doesn't need to be a specific length of a wavelength. Some of the great things about the technology are that it doesn't interfere with other wireless technologies (so far), it has high bandwidth potential (100Mbs), and is great indoors because it both goes through walls, and also bounces off walls very well (I know that is contradictory, but I don't want to go into too much detail here). Because it steps on licensed bands, the FCC has regulated it to only allow its use with very low power. So it is, legally, only good up to about 10 meters.
XtremeSpectrum www.xtremespectrum.com was probably the most interesting demo for consumers. They were in a small room and only could demonstrate to crowds of about 20 people per session, so you had to wait to see it-making it seem more exciting. They had two of their boxes about 3 meters apart and were streaming 2 HDTV signals from one to the other and displaying the picture on 2 large flat screen TVs. They did this with a 2.4Ghz portable phone, a 802.11a, wireless card, and a Sprint PCS phone all working in the room without interference. They even put a piece of drywall (and then his hand) in front of the sending antenna to show how it bounces around it. Their big thing is streaming multimedia. They see video cameras, DVD players, and audio systems all using this technology to replace the wires to the TV and speakers (sorry Monster Cable). The technology is a capacity of 100Mbs. They are getting 65Mbs real throughput. For reference, a HDTV video stream is 20Mbs, so you could have 3 concurrent streams of digital video. They are only focusing on one-way streaming though--look for someone else to come up with a two-way system for data in the next few months. They (and others) are using the 802.15.3 standard to put a MAC layer on the UWB stack.
Another company representing was Multispectral Solutions http://www.multispectral.com/. They had a number of products that included UWB radar, packet radio systems, and stealthy communications. Because UWB uses such a wide spectrum, at low speeds it is completely undetectable and looks like noise. These guys had helmets that used this technology along with crypto chips to make it even more secure for two-way voice communications. Another application they had was electronic tag tracking. Because the chips use so little power, small electronic tags (with watch batteries) can be placed on people or things and tracked throughout a space.
Another cool application was from Time Domain Corporation http://www.timedomain.com/; they had thru wall imaging devices. Anyone who has played Rogue Spear and used a heartbeat monitor knows the value of this. You take this small suitcase sized device and put it against a wall and you can see blobs where people are on the other side. The display looks a lot like a pregnancy ultra-sound (triangular). They had this device attached to a short wall and you could see the display as the marketing guy walked around behind it. You could really only make out a cloud moving around, but that's all you need to identify where the bad guys are.
Sensors & Software Inc, Geophysical Survey Systems Inc, and Mala GeoScience were all about ground penetrating radar. They had lawnmower looking devices that could identify stuff under ground or concrete. The FCC allows for higher power levels in the UWB for these devices. Since some frequency waves can penetrate materials where other small waves bounce off, they can fingerprint different things underground to find pipes, wires, or liquid. If you ever had someone check your yard for utilities before you build a deck or dig, they were most likely using handheld versions of this technology (since not all utility lines are discoverable with a metal detector).
If you want to learn more, the links that I included above have good background and white papers about the technology. I think it's going to be big in the next couple years. Future applications could be as a last mile solution, high-speed network access over longer distances, or electronic tagging of products in stores.
There is a commercial that I once saw were a guy in a trench coat was walking around a grocery store putting stuff in his coat. A detector beeped when he was walking out the door, and a security guard said, "Excuse me sir." The man pauses and looks back, and the guard continues, "You forgot your receipt." This concept could be accomplished by having electronic tags and have the scanner debit your account like the toll road smart tags or ExxonMobil Easypass. Pretty cool.
-----Original Message-----
From: Tim Pozar [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Tuesday, February 11, 2003 7:55 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [BAWUG] FCC TO HOST CUTTING EDGE ULTRA-WIDEBAND TECHNOLOGY
DEMONSTRATIONS.
For those in the DC area. It looks like a show-and-tell for all
the vendors doing UWB.
