Modern Ultra-Wideband Communications:

Recent Overview and Future Prospects

Item Type Article

Authors Gao, Xin; Huai, Lian

Citation Gao, X. and Huai, L. (2020) ‘Modern ultra-wideband

communications: recent overview and future prospects’, Int. J.
Ultra Wideband Communications and Systems, Vol. 4, No. 2, pp.
57–67.

Publisher Inderscience

Journal International Journal of Ultra Wideband Communications and

Systems

Rights Copyright © 2020 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

Download date 17/03/2023 03:08:14

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Version Final accepted manuscript

Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/647651

 Modern ultra-wideband communications: recent
overview and future prospects

Xin Gao*
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
The University of Arizona,
Tucson, AZ 85721, USA
Email: [email protected]
*Corresponding author

Lian Huai
Microsoft Inc.,
Microsoft Building 40,
Redmond, WA 98052, USA
Email: [email protected]

Abstract: Regarding the modulation schemes and multiple access techniques, modern
ultra-wideband (UWB) communication displays unique features in wideband, high-speed data
transmission, low-power consumption and high security comparing to other wireless
communication systems. We present a general review of historical development, key features and
typical applications on UWB, then briefly discuss its recent progress in IEEE standards,
application potentials for broadband wireless access and current benefits. Future development on
UWB transmission schemes and challenges of system design, are concisely proposed in contrast
to those of several other typical communication systems.

Keywords: ultra-wideband; UWB; modulation; detection; wireless communication; physical

layer.

Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Gao, X. and Huai, L. (2020) ‘Modern
ultra-wideband communications: recent overview and future prospects’, Int. J. Ultra Wideband
Communications and Systems, Vol. 4, No. 2, pp.57–67.
Biographical notes: Xin Gao is a PhD student in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the
University of Arizona, Tucson, USA. His research interests mainly include 3D image recovery
and reconstruction, anomaly detection in traffic analysis, statistical signal processing, modern
algorithms on digital image analysis and digital image processing, automatic object detection and
classification, data (signal, image and video, etc.) compression in intelligent transportation
systems, biomedical signal processing and imaging devices.

Lian Huai received her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Huazhong University of Science
and Technology in 2007 and 2009, respectively, and PhD degree in Department of Electrical and
Computer Engineering, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis in December 2014. She is
currently working as a Software Engineer in Microsoft, Redmond, WA, USA.

1 Introduction et al., 2019; Wang et al., 2019). Digital data such as

multivariate signals carrying HDTV (Ghavami et al., 2004)
Substantially emerged as a promising technology that
or time-divisible low-speed signals (Siriwongpairat and Liu,
satisfies the rising demand for high-speed wireless indoor
2004) for indoor systems – are sharing resources over a
networks, ultra-wideband (UWB) communications have
local wireless network. Such kind of small-scale computer
been establishing significant advantages of both systematic
networking system displays uniqueness, while consumes
design and practical use for indoor networking and other
extremely high data rate, reasonable cost and very low
wireless communication systems (Alarifi et al., 2016;
powers (Ghavami et al., 2004). With its vivid utilisations of
Ghavami et al., 2004; Siriwongpairat and Liu, 2004;
impulse radio, sparse spectrum density and enormous
Dueñas, 2005; Gao et al., 2009; Zhang et al., 2010a, 2010b,
bandwidth, the UWB techniques are representing a reliable
2010c; Panda and Patra, 2011; Lv and Bai, 2012; Song,
platform to meet the requirements and attract future wireless
2012; Sharma, 2013; Dotlic and Miura, 2014; Motroniuk
indoor networks (Ghavami et al., 2004; Sharma and Bose,
et al., 2015; Raval et al., 2016; Rajanna et al., 2017; Basiron
2007; Eteng and Dike, 2013).
et al., 2017; Herceg et al., 2018; Dwairi et al., 2019; Saeidi
1.1 Historical review: What is UWB? UWB signals, require special receiver structures, e.g.,
correlation receiver or rake receiver.
With respect to the Federal Communications Commission
(FCC) Standard in 2002, UWB is specifically defined as 4 High energy efficiency, extremely low cost and small
pulsed communications that use a broadcast bandwidth of power consumption: Non-carrier transmit/receive mode
over 500 MHz, or 20% of the centre frequency, and of UWB signal can save the crystal oscillator and the
operates between 3.1 GHz and 10.6 GHz at limited transmit blocks for modulation and demodulation. The
powers (Ghavami et al., 2004; Dueñas, 2005). Comparison simultaneous electronic waves with narrow
of UWB signals to other signals on fractional bandwidth is pulse-shaped data, are often realised through basic
depicted in Figure 1. station (source power < 1 mW) with long duration of
sources.
Figure 1 Comparison for the fractional bandwidth of a UWB
signal with narrow/wideband signals (see online
version for colours) 1.3 Typical applications of UWB
As a fast-developing technology, UWB enables a great
number of applications in modern wireless communication
networks, medical imaging, radar and localisation systems,
to name a few (Siriwongpairat and Liu, 2004; Khuda,
2018). Typical applications of UWB are viewed in three
main aspects: the major application is wireless-based UWB,
which includes wireless local area networks (WLAN),
ad hoc networks, local Wimax, high-speed Bluetooth and
other short-range communication links. The second aspect
of applications on UWB, takes extensive concerns of
multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radar techniques,
In general, UWB represents a unique type of wireless e.g., beamforming, radar imaging and radar ranging,
technology, which has the capacity of sending huge data ground penetrating or landmine detection as well as
over relatively small distances at the cost of inconstant pulse high-resolution through-the-wall radar sensors. The third
transmissions on an extremely broad bandwidth (Dueñas, aspect is UWB-based devices, which include UWB radar
2005). The imaging and radar implementations of UWB sensors for biomedical diagnostics and medical treatment,
transmit between 1 and 100 mega-pulses per second, while vital body sign monitoring, collision avoidance, telemetry
communication systems have between 1 and 2 giga-pulses motion detection, intelligent airbags and geolocations.
per second (Dueñas, 2005). This low emitted power means a The IEEE802.15.3a study group had been dedicated to
UWB device matches short range communications (up to standardising UWB for indoor local network transmissions
10 metres); however, their battery life is no longer limited since 2002 (Ghavami et al., 2004). In order to normalise
by the necessary output power at the antenna, while instead channel models and deploy high-data-rate, short-distance
by the techniques of back-end power consumption and pulse communications for major UWB systems, the higher-speed
detection (Siriwongpairat and Liu, 2004). physical layer with standardised parameters had been
provided for applications on imaging and multimedia. On
1.2 Key features of UWB the other hand, the 802.15.4 study group, had also defined
the low-data-rate applications exploiting UWB technology
The technical merits of UWB are summarised as below: within physical layer design. Keynote applications of UWB
1 High rate on data-transmission: By the Shannon take concerns for location tracking, i.e., scalability to data
formula that C = B · log2 (1 + SNR), it is obviously rates, sensors, longer range positioning and identification in
shown that the channel capacity is proportional to its networks (Siriwongpairat and Liu, 2004; Miller, 2003).
bandwidth in condition of fixed SNR. The remainder of this paper is organised as follows. The
characteristics of UWB modulation and signal detection are
2 Strong immunity and high accuracy for measuring: The discussed in Section 2. IEEE standards and its application
resolution of extremely short-pulsed UWB signal is potentials of UWB wireless communications are introduced
lower than 1ns level and hence suppresses the in Section 3. Section 4 presents our prospects for UWB
shadowing effects and attenuate fading. Since the transmission schemes and the latest challenges of its design.
narrow pulse filtered multi-path signal reflection, Section 5 summarises our conclusions.
stronger schemes on multi-path resolving may lead to
higher precision of ranging.
3 Confidentiality: By the use of direct sequence (DS) or 2 UWB modulation and signal detection
time-hopping (TH) spread spectrum (SS) techniques,
The signal generation of UWB-based communications
adopting the input spreading code for decoding, ensures
can be categorised in two main groups: single-band and
the secrecy of signal transmission. Meanwhile, the
multi-band typed approaches. Take the impulse radio as an
rather low-power-spectrum density (PSD) of modulated
example for a single-band UWB system: the signal which mixer. Meanwhile, UWB receiver did not have any
represents a symbol including serial pulses with extremely requirement of middle-region frequency processing such
low duty cycle, makes very broad bandwidth and leads to a that the structures of transmitter and receiver for a typical
better resolution of multi-path in UWB channels since the UWB system can be quite simple, which are sketched in
pulse is quite narrow (Dueñas, 2005); for a multi-band Figures 3(a) and 3(b).
UWB modulation, it is accomplished by using multi-carrier
or OFDM modulation with Hadamard or other spreading Figure 2 A general block diagram of UWB system model
codes (Miller, 2003). In this way, UWB systems effectively
eliminate delay spread or frequency selectivity of channels. Modulation Pulse Fading
Bit stream
generation channel

2.1 System model for UWB transmitters and Detector Demodulator Remapping
Binary
stream
receivers
As is adopted by the IEEE802.15.3a standard, standard
UWB systems are featured with path loss, shadowing and 2.2 Single carrier-based modulation
small-scale fading channel models (Ghavami et al., 2004):
For single-carrier-based modulation of UWB, the pulse
the free-space path loss is centred at frequency fc given by
position modulation (PPM), bipolar signalling (BPSK),
f L f H where fL and fH are picked up at the –10 dB edge of pulse amplitude modulation (PAM), on/off keying (OOK),
waveform spectrum. It is assumed that shadowing has the orthogonal pulse modulation (OPM) and their combinations,
lognormal distribution with standard deviation of 3 dB, and stand for keynote schemes. PPM and BPSK are good
the small-scale fading is reliable on the Saleh-Valenzuela candidates for UWB due to the fact that they have better
model (Siriwongpairat and Liu, 2004) with channel impulse bit-energy performance than that of PAM or OOK from
response: theoretic views. The periodical waveforms of PPM and
C L BPSK for UWB modulation (Dueñas, 2005) are depicted in
h(t ) = α (c, l ) ⋅ δ (t − T − τ
c =0 l =0
c c ,l ) (1) Figures 4(a) and 4(b), where Δc denotes the impulse of time
delay.
Notably, the M-ary PPM signal is structured as (Dueñas,
where C and L denotes the number of clusters and the 2005):
corresponding number of rays with clusters, respectively.
+∞
α(c, l) presents the gain of the lth multi-path component in
the cth cluster, τc,l stands for the delay of the lth path relative
x1 (t ) =  w ( t − kT
k =−∞
f − m(k ) ⋅ Td ) (2)
to the cth cluster arrival time. A block diagram for standard
UWB systems (Dueñas, 2005) is shown in Figure 2. where w (⋅) is the pulsed waveform, m(k) ∈ {0, 1, …,
For UWB transmitters, small-pulsed generating M – 1} denotes the kth M-ary symbol, Tf and Td represent
antennas represented a compatible match and saved the each symbol period and the modulation delay, respectively.
efforts of upper frequency conversion. Hence, the rather
inexpensive broad-width transmitters are directly applicable
and hence make substitutions of both the amplifier and the

Figure 3 (a) Structure of a UWB transmitter (b) Structure of the corresponding receiver to a UWB system

Transmit
data Convolutional Convolutional BPSK/4 BOK RF
Scrambler Spreading
encoder interleaver modulator processing

Acquisition sequence
Start frame delimiter
Training sequence

(a)

Acquisition
frame synchronisation
channel estimation

Receive
data Viterbi BPSK/4 BOK CMF and
Descrambler Deinterleaver RF
decoder demodulator DFE rake receiver processing

(b)
Figure 4 (a) PPM waveform (b) BPSK waveform for UWB and direct-sequence spreading-spectrum (DS-SS), both of
(see online version for colours) which utilise pseudo-noise (PN) codes to get separate
users (Siriwongpairat and Liu, 2004). Figure 5 depicts a
TH-UWB signal with PPM modulation, and the transmitted
signal can be structured as (Dueñas, 2005):
+∞
x (t ) =  w ( t − kT
k =−∞
f − c(k ) ⋅ Tc − m(k ) ⋅ Td ) (4)

where Tf, Tc and Td denote the frame interval, time shift and
the modulation delay, respectively.

Figure 6 DS-UWB signal with PPM modulation (see online

version for colours)

(a)

For a UWB signal generated by DS-BPSK (as depicted in

Figure 6), the waveform can be structured as (Dueñas,
2005):
+∞ N c −1
1
x (t ) =
Nc

k =−∞
d (k )  c ( n ) w ( t − kT
nc = 0
c f − ncTc ) (5)
(b)
The BPSK signal for UWB waveform is expressed as where Δc denotes the impulse of time delay, Tf denotes the
(Dueñas, 2005): time period of modulated signal impulse.
+∞
Two major shortcomings on single carrier-based UWM
x2 (t ) =  [2d (k ) − 1] ⋅ w ( t − kT
k =−∞
f ) (3) modulation such as PPM, are recognised as relatively high
inter-symbol interference (ISI) and the bit-error rate is not
optimal under additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN)
where d(k) denotes the binary data, w (⋅) and Tf have the channel. In the following subsections, we discuss the
same notation as that of PPM signal. multi-band OFDM-based UWB modulation schemes.

Figure 5 TH-UWB signal with PPM modulation (see online 2.3 Multi-band OFDM-based UWB modulation
version for colours)
The present main technique of UWB to deal with delay
spread, is named as the multi-band (MB) OFDM-based
modulation. As proposed on multi-band for IEEE802.15.3a
standard (Ghavami et al., 2004; Dueñas, 2005), the entire
7.5 GHz UWB spectrum were divided into 14 sub-bands
(each one equivalently occupies a bandwidth of 528 MHz),
every sub-band held 128 OFDM sub-carriers with
4.125 MHz bandwidth (as depicted in Figure 7).
Modulated OFDM symbols are time-interleaved across
sub-bands. Similar as the standard OFDM technique, every
In single-band UWB systems, since multi-users often OFDM-UWB signal can be constructed by (Ghavami et al.,
simultaneously have cooperative sharing of a single UWB 2004):
spectrum, multiple access techniques have been of great N −1
necessity to coordinate with these users. Typical techniques sk (t ) =  d (n) exp( j 2πn ⋅ Δft )
k 0 < t < NTs (6)
are known as the time-hopping spreading-spectrum (TH-SS) n =0
where dk(n) represents the complex coefficient transmitted the booms of systematic complexity. Besides, the inherent
in sub-carrier n during the kth symbol period, N denotes the peak-to-average ratio (PAR) issue of OFDM, remains
number (transmitted symbols) of the sub-carriers per OFDM to be a problematic issue. On the other hand, due to the
block. The sub-carrier frequency is fn = f0 + n · Δf, where Δf limitation of transmission PSD of defined by FCC, the
is the frequency spacing between two adjacent sub-carriers. narrow bandwidth of each sub-carrier would lead to the
The condition of orthogonality requires NTs = 1/Δf when shortage of transmission power, and hence, high data rate
demodulating the OFDM-UWB signal waveform. When communications are difficult to realise. Moreover, since the
f0 = 0, it is proved that the sampled version of the OFDM MB-OFDM adopts even narrow spectrum sub-carrier, the
signal, can be expressed as (Ghavami et al., 2004): property of accurate positioning is lower than those of
N −1
TH-UWB and DS-UWB-based modulation schemes.
 d (n) exp  j ⋅
2πnk 
s ( nTs ) = k  (7)
n =0
N  Figure 8 (a) Frequency interleaving scheme of multi-band UWB
signals within one group (b) Realisation of multi-band
Hence, inverse discrete Fourier transform (IDFT) can be UWB signals in time domain and frequency domain
used to convert the transmitted symbols into OFDM signal. (see online version for colours)

Figure 7 UWB Multi-band OFDM spectrum (with sub-bands

group division and sub-carriers) (see online version
for colours)

(a)

Figure 8 illustrates the frequency interleaving scheme and

sample realisations on multi-band UWB. As depicted in
Figure 8(a), a time period contains three multi-band UWB
signal pulses, where each pulse is arranged with zero prefix,
information length and followed by a guard interval
for the switching time of transmit/receiver. Following the (b)
frequency interleaving scheme of single group multi-band
UWB signals, its realisation in both time and frequency Nevertheless, MB-OFDM achieves dynamic bandwidth
domain are displayed in Figure 8(b). allocation to increase symbol duration, which benefits the
Regarding to system construction, prominent advantages capacity of suppressing channel ISI. The communication
of MB-OFDM-based UWB are recognised as follows: distance is also longer by MB-OFDM-based UWB system,
because of its high-speed and near-perfect energy capturing
1 Simple implementation: In contrast to no carrier pulse of weak signals.
communication, RF and front-end analogue circuits are
easy to design; similar advantages work for the
analogue-to-digital converter (ADC) part. 2.4 UWB receiver design
2 High utilisation efficiency of spectrum: When the While conventional receivers have poor match on UWB
number of sub-carriers rises, the superposition signal demodulation, typical receivers for UWB systems,
amplitude spectrum from that of each sub-carrier, will are regarded as correlation receiver and rake receiver
display good rectangular features. (Miller, 2003). A UWB correlation receiver (Ghavami et al.,
2004) is depicted in Figure 9, where LNA is the low-noise
However, since MB-OFDM-based UWB system needs FFT amplifier and AGC is the automatic gain control, A/D
and IFFT unites which increased complexity on the stands for the ADC and its inverse is denoted as D/A.
implementation, the power consumption also levels up with
Figure 9 Block diagram of a digital UWB correlation receiver 3 IEEE standards for UWB: specifications on
physical layer
3.1 IEEE standards on UWB communication
Since 2003, the study group for IEEE802.15.3a standard
had been attempting to meet an agreement on two major
standards of UWB technology: MB-OFDM or DS-CDMA,
which technique is upon selection? However, during their
meetings, neither MB-OFDM nor DS-CDMA passed the
required 75% votes! For high data rate and short-range
applications, this proposal was withdrawn in early 2006.
The IEEE802.15.4a standard had specified two physical
For binary-modulated single-band UWB signal in ideal layers using both UWB and chirp spread pectrum (CSS). An
channels, a correlation receiver is optimum, depending on alternative low-rate physical layer of UWB, designated
coherent detection of the main signal components. In other frequencies in three ranges: < 1 GHz, 3~5 GHz, and
words, referring to local ‘template’ signals, receiver makes 6~10 GHz (Ajello and Batra, 2006). The principle interests
binary decisions on the sign of correlation values (Miller, on 802.15.4a-based UWB, provides high precision ranging
2003; Shen et al., 2006). and location capability (one-metre accuracy and better),
high aggregate throughput and ultra-low-power, increasing
Figure 10 The Rake receiver with J fingers for a UWB system
scalability to data rates, longer range, and lower power
Correlator Sum consumption and cost as well.
Finger 1 Max
decision
LNA
Correlator Sum 3.2 MB-OFDM or DS-CDMA: comparison for their
. PHY layer specifications
.
.
Correlator In general point of view, MB-OFDM and DS-CDMA
have distinct advantages and shortcomings. MB-OFDM is
Finger J
Correlator easier to implement, withstands very low-power supply due
to its multi-band style. Also, the flexible arrangement of
For multi-path channels with distinct frequency-selective sub-bands, leads to higher efficiency for its frequency band
fading, rake receivers are quite applicable for exploiting the spectrum and hence increased the extensibility of data rate.
multi-path diversity (Soni et al., 2011). Combining some In contrast, DS-CDMA adopts the style of ‘single-band,
constructive monocycles from different multi-path of a narrow-pulse’ modulation, because the entire frequency
received pulse to improve the UWB system performance, spectrum, can be shared by a variety of transmission tasks.
each correlator is synchronised to a multi-path component, Meanwhile, DS-CDMA generates less interference to the
and the results make sums for all correlators in the rake presently licensed users, consumes low cost and is prone to
model (depicted in Figure 10). Finally, a decision device realise transmissions of low-power consumption and low
justifies which symbol was transmitted after analysing the data streams.
added outputs. In Rake receiver, the path selection Most notably, to be frank, MB-OFDM and DS-CDMA
techniques contain maximum, partial and threshold have technical contradictions for their products. DS-CDMA
selection, the combining methods specifies the options of are more compatible for media stream; tremendous data
equal gain combining (EGC), maximum ratio combining transmission and the sample products have been exhibited
(MRC) or minimum mean-square-error combining in early 2004, however, earlier-ahead work of DS-CDMA
(NMMSEC) (Miller, 2003). followed by its staggering progress. On the other hand,
In contrast to the single correlator case, rake receiver MB-OFDM has been catching up with DS-CDMA for its
improved performance of UWB signal reception at the cost greater advantages on volume, cost and power consumption
of increased complexity of having to synchronise several than the latter one. Chips designed by MB-OFDM had
components (specified as Fingers 1 to J) and making their already displayed the capacity to transmit data as fast as
gains adjusted. This technique maximises the amount of 480 Mbit/s several years ago. Keynote technical parameters
energy received per symbol, and MMSEC has displayed of MB-OFDM and DS-CDMA are specified in Table 1.
optimal performance under narrowband interference while A few major communication companies also
its drawbacks are the higher complexity compared to EGC participated in settling their preferred UWB technical
and MRC (Miller, 2003). parameters. Texas instrument and Intel attribute to
MB-OFDM alliance, while XTreme Spectrum belongs to
the DS-CDMA camp (Ajello and Batra, 2006). The
comparison of physical layer proposal from three companies
(March 2003), are concisely depicted in Table 2 (Miller,
2003; Shen et al., 2006).
Table 1 Technical standards for MB-OFDM versus DS-CDMA (time-frequency interferometry – TFI, spread spectrum – SS)

Technical standards MB-OFDM DS-CDMA

Number of frequency bands 10 (3 for the first generation) 2
Sub-band bandwidth 528 MHz (4.125 MHz * 128 sub-carrier) Ranged from 1.268~2.736 GHz
Frequency range Groups 1–5: 3.168~4.752 GHz; 4.752~6.336 GHz; 3.2~5.15 GHz; 5.825~10.6 GHz
6.336~7.920 GHz; 7.920~9.504 GHz; 9.504~10.560 GHz
Modulation scheme TFI-OFDM, QPSK BPSK, QPSK, DS-SS
Error control coding Convolutional code Reed-Solomon or convolutional code
Multiplex mode TFI CDMA
Link margin 5.3 dB/10 m: 110 Mbit/s; 10.0 dB/4 m: 200 Mbit/s; 6.7 dB/10 m: 110M bit/s; 11.9 dB/4 m:
11.5 dB/2 m: 480 Mbit/s 200 Mbit/s; 1.7 dB/2 m: 480 Mbit/s

Table 2 Comparison of physical layer proposal for IEEE 802.15.3a from major companies

Company Texas instruments Intel XTreme Spectrum

Spectrum allocation 3 (additional bands added 7 (optional 6 bands applicable in 2
(number of bands) in the future) future)
Bandwidths 503.25 MHz 550 MHz 1.368 GHz, 2.736 GHz
Frequency ranges 3.168 GHz~4.752 GHz 3.6~6.9 GHz (optional 7.4~10.2 GHz) 3.1 GHz~5.15 GHz,
5.825 GHz~10.6 GHz
Modulation scheme TFI-OFDM, QPSK M-ary bi-orthogonal keying (MBOK), BPSK, QPSK
QPSK
Co-existence method Null-band for WLAN (~5 GHz) Null-band for WLAN (~5 GHz) Null-band for WLAN (~5 GHz)
Multiple access Not available DS/FH CDMA, optional CDMA Avoidance
method
Number of Not available Not available Ternary CDMA
simultaneous piconets
Error correction codes Convolutional code Convolutional code, Convolutional code,
Reed-Solomon code Reed-Solomon code
Rates of code 11/32 @ 110 Mbps, 5/8 6/32 @ 110 Mbps, 5/16 @ 200 Mbps, 1/2 @ 110 Mbps, RS
@ 200 Mbps, 3/4 @480 Mbps 3/4 @ 480 Mbps (255, 223) @ 200 Mbps,
RS (255, 223) @ 480 Mbps
Link margin 5.5 dB @ 10 m @ 110 Mbps, 6.3 dB @ 10 m @ 108 Mbps, 8.0 dB 9.9 dB @ 10 m @ 110 Mbps,
10.2 dB @ 4 m @ 200 Mbps, @ 4 m @ 288 Mbps, 4.0 dB @ 2 m 13.2 dB @ 4 m @ 200 Mbps,
12.2 dB @ 2 m @ 480 Mbps @ 577 Mbps 3.4 dB @ 2 m @ 600 Mbps
Symbol period 312.5 ns OFDM symbol 3 ns 731 ns (low band), 365.5 ns
(high band)
Multi-path mitigation 1-tap (robust to 60.6 ns Frequency interleaving of MBOK Decision feedback equaliser
method delay spread) chips; time frequency codes, feed (DFE)
forward filter

Table 3 Short-range communication parameters for UWB in contrast to others

IEEE 802.11a Bluetooth HomeRF UWB

Data rate 54 Mbps < 1 Mbps 1~2 Mbps > 500 Mbps, up to 1 G
Communication range 10~100 m 10 m 50 m < 10 m
Transmitted >1W 1~100 mW >1W < 1 mW
power/capacity 80 Kbps/m2 30 Kbps/m2 50 Kbps/m2 1,000 Kbps/m2
Appliances WLAN, Office connections, Indoor voice speech, Short-range multi-media,
internet gateway I-phone bit-streams DVD high-speed gateway
Supporting company Cisco, Lucent, 3Com Ericsson, Nokia Apple, Dell Compaq Intel, Motorola, Sony,
Motorola Sharp
3.3 Comparison for UWB with IEEE802.11a, will gradually disappear. That is why when UWB first
Bluetooth and home RF came out people said it would be a killer of Bluetooth.
Since the range of transmission is about 10 metres, we 3 HomeRF and UWB: HomeRF shows a wireless
compare UWB with some other popular technologies on networking technology which is specifically designed
short-range communication to show its advantages and why for home residential environment. It takes use of the
they are so important. The most frequently used short-range protocol supporting TCP/IP transmission in 802.11
wireless technologies, include IEEE802.11a, Bluetooth and specifications. And its performance on voice
HomeRF. transmission, is from DECT (cordless telephone)
standard. HomeRF is defined in the spectrum of
1 IEEE802.11a and UWB: IEEE802.11a is one of the 2.4 GHz, which is unlicensed public wireless spectrum
standards for wireless area network drafted by IEEE range. It employs an air interface on frequency hopping
(Dueñas, 2005). It has the speed of 54 Mbps in physical (change of channels) at 50 times per second. The
layer and 25 Mbps in transport layer. The longest maximum transceiver power is 100 mW, the effective
communication range of IEEE 802.11a can be range is about 50 metres, and the rate range is about
100 metres, while UWB is just used in communications 1~2 Mbps. Comparing HomeRF to UWB, they have
within a shorter distance around 10 metres. However, in unique features: HomeRF qualifies long-distance data
the short-range transmission (within 10 metres), the transmission, but the rate is quite low; the transmission
communication rate of IEEE802.11a standard is quite distance of UWB is only one-fifth of HomeRF, while
different from that of UWB. In UWB, the transmission the speed is hundreds of times or even thousands of
speed reaches up to thousands of megabits per second, times on that of HomeRF (Heidari, 2008; Hurt, 2003).
which is several dozen times higher than that of
IEEE802.11a (Dueñas, 2005). Outside the range of In sum, the three popular standards on short-distance
10 metres, limited by the transceiver power, the wireless communications, display different features in a few
performance of UWB downgrades quite fast. (From aspects. Sometimes these technologies compete with each
latest report of UWB, the approximate transmission other; however, in practical applications areas, they
length has been extended to 20 metres so far.) Overall, complement with each other. It is irresponsible to just say
in the short-range around 10 metres, UWB has apparent that UWB can replace some technology. Take the aircraft as
advantage compared to IEEE802.11a. On the contrary, a metaphor, it is fast and stable, but still cannot totally
outside the communication length of 10 metres, replace a bicycle. Each technology has the application areas
IEEE802.11a has better performance than UWB. In of their own.
addition, IEEE802.11a consumes much more power The technology standards and differences (Shen et al.,
than UWB (Miller, 2003; Ajello and Batra, 2006). 2006) between four technologies (IEEE 802.11a, Bluetooth,
HomeRF and UWB), are summarised in Table 3.
2 Bluetooth and UWB: Bluetooth stands for a wireless
network technology jointly launched by Ericsson, IBM
and other three companies in 1998. They founded the 4 Summary and prospects
Bluetooth Special Interest Groups (SIG), which was in
charge of the development of this technology and the In retrospect to the popular short-range communication
assignment of the technique standards. So far, there had schemes, great potential has been exhibited in UWB for its
been more than 1,800 companies jointed in this group. enormous data transmission and storage capacity. Besides,
The transmission distance ranges from 10 cm to 10 m. higher resolution is reliable to larger bandwidth of UWB
It adopted the 2.4 GHz ISM spectrum, frequency signal. Future trend of UWB applications, would mainly
modulation and hopping frequency technology, consider carrier-less transmission (with low-cost CMOS
displaying a transmission speed of 1 Mbps (Ajello and technology, low data rate), accurate indoor UWB localisers
Batra, 2006). (measuring propagation times to overcome the weakness of
GPS), ad hoc network structure and the cable substitutions
From technical point of view for parameters, UWB has
(Wood and Aiello, 2008). Due to the unique advantages of
obvious advantages compared to Bluetooth. Although
data transmission rates and restricted from emission power
they have similar communication distance as well as
of UWB techniques, its crucial application domain must be
power consumption, UWB is far better in the
high-speed wireless data transmission within a short range
communication rate and has been almost several
of distance, which matches a variety of applications in
hundred times faster than that of Bluetooth. From the
current WLAN and personal area network (PAN) (Shen
development in the past decade, the only advantage of
et al., 2006).
Bluetooth that overcame UWB, shows that the
The booming demands of military service and domestic
technology of Bluetooth is relatively mature while
digital amusement, promote a bright future of UWB. The
UWB has just developed for 15 years while lacks
application of UWB, can be mainly divided into military
market needs and suffers pricy issues. However, with
and civilian applications. In the military aspect, it meets the
the progressive development of UWB, this shortcoming
requirements of large-capacity, low-interception (LPI/D)
and high-rate characteristics of military communications.
UWB is capable of realising the combination of three where the printed elliptical monopole antenna was regarded
functions of ranging radar, localisation and communication, as a perfect integration of several merits such as simple
especially suitable for radar high detection resolution and structure, wide bandwidth, broadside radiator with 3D
miniaturisation, the UWB-based wireless devices are easy radiation patterns (Saeidi et al., 2019). Several UWB-related
to install on small aircraft and mobile vehicles. Besides, research topics are crossly associated with breast
UWB technology has a wide range of applications in the cancer detection and diagnostic testing (Khuda, 2018),
field of wall/ground imaging detection radar, warning radar, high-dimensional data processing (Zhang et al., 2010a,
high-precision positioning navigation system. Marketing of 2010b, 2010c; Shao et al., 2019a, 2019b) as well as some
UWB is also extensive in the fields of civilian wireless other cybersecurity related approaches such as real-time
PANs as well as fast wireless data transmission (Shen et al., analysis and autonomic author identification on internet
2006). In addition to the aforementioned WLAN, ad hoc relay chat (IRC) threat detection (Bernard et al., 2018; Shao
network, UWB-based wireless USB technology, personal et al., 2017; Shao et al., 2018), a classification scheme in the
space network, outdoor peer-to-peer network and related channels using deep-autoencoder neural networks
car-mounted system, take security, reliability, low-power (Shao et al., 2019a, 2019b), and the broadband microwave
consumption and other characteristics of UWB technology photonics time-reversal module for indoor wireless
into account, exploit flexibility and high degree of freedom communication and UWB remote sensing (Wang et al.,
on its transmission technology, expand its function of 2019).
distincting targets, improve compatibility and reliability of Technical innovations and beneficial interests of UWB
modern WLAN communication technologies, and suggest stimulate great concerns within the global range. The goal
great potentials in prospective development. of UWB technology is represented as ‘swifter, further and
While UWB technology on localisation is widely used broader’. Many well-experienced and newly participated
due to high precision, some universal problems still exist in researchers, are devoted to such a domain of technology.
practical use: in terms of market demand, the real needs Thanks to the belief of UWB, not only it is favourable by
represented by UWB is still relatively limited, where many practical domestic users for high-speed data transmission
enterprises believed that many UWB-related topics are not and obscured object detection, but also it is fast developing
worthy of large-scale investment (Song, 2012). There are and becoming more mature with the promotion of military
still less requirements on positioning of movable objects needs and market business.
(such as workshop workers and robots, etc.), and future
demand is uncertain. High cost is also an issue that cannot
be ignored: due to the complicated structure and limited 5 Conclusions
demand of UWB system on localisation, UWB still has
Our work links an overview of modern UWB
more than ten times the price difference in terms of base
communication from crucial features, real designs, physical
stations and tags localisation in contrast to Bluetooth and
layer standards to practical applications. We have presented
WIFI technologies. DW1000 represents the first single-chip
UWB modulation and signal detection, the relevant IEEE
wireless transceiver related to UWB positioning technology,
standards with application potentials of UWB, and the
which has quite a few algorithms on integration; however,
comparison of some technical parameters between different
its actual precision error of debugging is still large, and the
realisation schemes towards UWB and among short-range
product data and technical support are both insufficient. In
wireless communication systems in industrial view. We
addition, due to some related issues in UWB principle and
discussed the current problems and the challenging issues of
power, it also affects the expected positioning accuracy and
UWB transmission schemes in a few aspects on indoor
transmission distance. These UWB related issues call for
localisation techniques and their extended applications.
subsequent exploration with some intersections of industry,
robots as well as the internet of things (IoT), and improve
localisation accuracy and transmission reliability of signals.
Recently, theoretical investigations and practical design
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