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Internet of Things and
the resurgence of Ultra
Wide Band Technology
- Who knew?
By Moses Asom and Ngozi Bell,
Ultra-Wide!Band (UWB) technology, as we know it now, started in the late
1960’s, the primary use case, was radar detection and location applications and
communications. By the 1980’s the military (Department of Defense) was using
UWB in pinning locations, warning against!collisions, fluid level detection, in-
truder identification and more.!!Key technical pioneers for UWB include,!!H.F
Harmuth (Catholic University), Ross and Robin (Sperry Rand Corporation), Paul
Van Etten at USAF Rome labs and Russia.!!Several of these people and many
others hold patents in their important contributions from antenna design con-
cepts, to system design, to coding schemes and several application areas includ-
ing radar, and communications technology.!
Moses Asom, Ngozi Bell October 16, 2019
UWB which uses very short pulses to transmit signals has the advantage of very
low power and!!is intrinsically very secure. Additionally, its high bandwidth ca-
pacity over a wide range of radio spectrum, efficiently enables high-speed short-
range communication with very high position determination accuracy. In com-
parison, Bluetooth has 1 to 3m position accuracy, WiFi has 5 to 15m, while
UWB gives precise position accuracy in the 1 to 30cm granularity level!!!
2010 and beyond, brought a big shift to UWB application utility. UWB prolifera-
tion became stunted by a few factors including the expansion of WiFi integrated
electronic devices, followed by the emergence of Google’s digital media player
platform - Chromecast.
This write up highlights the emerging opportunity that UWB technology is ex-
pected to play in next generation communications.
In the same vein that one technology application emergence (integrated WiFi)
stunted the utility of UWB, another technology application emergence (IoT) is
poised to expand it!
Internet of Things (IoT) is now giving UWB a new set of wide applicability. IoT,
which is the ability to leverage internet enabled network connectivity and com-
puting capability to sensors, objects and “dumb” everyday items, thereby con-
verting them into a smart ecosystem of devices that generate, exchange and con-
sume data that can be harnessed for useful purposes. IoT is already implemented
in more than 15 billion devices and is expected to double in applications by
2020! By 2025, IoT is expected to have a global commercial impact of $11T
through its 100B connected devices! IoT will touch every sector with ap-
plications that range from industrial automation to smart homes, grids, farming
Moses Asom, Ngozi Bell October 16, 2019
and cities to smart retail and supply chains to connected cars and healthcare and
wearables and many applications in between.!
So how does UWB technology come into the IoT world?
Take for starters, Apple’s recent release of the iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro/Pro
Max which like many of the newer models of the iPhone, iPad and Mac plat-
forms support the iOS/ macOS integrated AirDrop file sharing feature. The dif-
ference was that prior to the 11 release, AirDrop was implemented to transfer
files over WiFi and Bluetooth. In the newly released iPhone 11 and iPhone 11Pro
and iPhone 11 Pro Max, the AirDrop feature uses UWB technology. The Apple
U1 chip with UWB location sensitive radio technology brings a robustness to the
AirDrop feature by adding “spatial awareness” - making the iPhone all the more
“smarter”. Spatial Awareness or directional awareness as it is also referenced, is
experienced for example, by pointing your iPhone to another person’s iPhone.
Your phone’s directional awareness feature is triggered, and it immediately
knows exactly where (direction) you are looking and additionally who (position)
specifically you might want to send information to. This is leaps and bounds
more specific intelligence beyond the detection of all close by devices we get
with Bluetooth! Apple calls this technology the “living room-scale GPS.”!
With Apple now firmly on-board the UWB train, the vision to leverage UWB
into IoT is further crystalized. UWB technology’s characteristics of high speed,
low power, strong security and the ultra wide band (that allows for multiple ap-
plications on the same spectrum without signal interference) is exactly what
makes it an ideal solution for short range IoT applications. In addition because of
the low power feature, energy emitted is virtually undetectable, so UWB devices
do not interfere with narrower band device signals and can operate harmoniously
with WiFi integrated devices. For Wireless Personal Area Networks (W-PAN)
Moses Asom, Ngozi Bell October 16, 2019
applications, UWB signals in commercial applications per IEEE802.15.3 are
specified to deliver up to 20Mbits/s or higher over a short range of 10M in the
3.1GHz to 10.6GHz band. Additionally, UWB technology’s ultra-wide spectrum
allows it share bandwidth with other short / large range wireless communication
signals; so basically you can create a large ecosystem of many connected devices
without interference.!!The technology brings along key features that are strong
positives for many IoT applications, they include large device count connectivity,
low power, fast data rates, low latency and low cost. However, its short nominal
range relegates it to IoT solutions for Personal Area Network (or Wireless PAN)
like within a living room environment.!
For longer range IoT solutions any of the options of cellular, WiFi and ethernet
will continue to dominate.!
All in all, UWB technology benefits are again on the forefront and making a
strong resurgence with IoT as the right re-entry point.
Below is our UWB technology history and some lessons we learned along the
way:
By 2010, with several UWB chipsets on the market. I (Moses Asom) was in-
volved in an early stage company in Shanghai/Beijing called Panovel. We set out
to develop a gateway solution to provide seamless wireless connectivity between
smartphones, computers, and TV screens.!!We were challenged to do this, with a
budget that was 10% of our competitors’ budgets. Suffice it to say we achieved
and exceeded the goal! We developed and deployed a high performance UWB
chipset that launched!our ViewSender/Receiver product line and further deployed
a competitive market solution, no small feat at the time!!!Then “the market hap-
Moses Asom, Ngozi Bell October 16, 2019
pened to us”. A combination of limited domestic commercial success, the emer-
gence of Google Chromecast and the!near ubiquitous!integration of!!Wi-Fi into
electronics devices delivered the triple knockout “market punches” that dashed
any hope of commercial success.!
You see, while we fully realized the tremendous potential that UWB technology
product development offered, we simultaneously lacked the ecosystem and at
that time what would have been considered the killer application.!
In today’s time, Apple is an example of the game changer platform that makes
that difference. With a robust global ecosystem and the new iPhone 11 as a con-
tinuum to Apple’s combo iPhone, iPad and Mac platforms that are conduits to
rolling out tons of “killer apps”, Apple has the perfect stance to accelerate and
exploit the UWB technology resurgence. Exactly what UWB technology needs
now to make a full comeback and what we lacked then to make it grow!!
So while I am proud of what our incredibly talented team accomplished with the
support of strong investors like GSR Ventures!and!Zhongguancun. History has
taught us all that the market can have an outsized impact on success and the
ecosystem that interacts with the market is the critical glue that can make or
break your success “gravy train”. Apple and companies like it, prove that to us
over and over again. As for me, I am happy to see UWB take its rightful place in
the history of connectivity. For now I’m off to discover more things!
References:
Moses Asom, Ngozi Bell October 16, 2019
1.!Ultra Wide-Band vs. Wi-Fi.!A!Study!&Comparison of the
two!technologies!(Progress Report)Wireless!Communication, EEEN-5333!Majid
Shaik!K00287783.!Department of!Electricaland
Computer!ScienceEngineering,!Texas A&M University, Kingsville, Texas
2. Dong-Seong Kim, Hoa TRan-Dang. "Ultra-Wideband Technology for Military
Applications". 2018. "Industrial Sensors and Controls in Communication Net-
works. pp.197-204.
3.!Panovel Technology Completes First Round of Funding By!Zero2IPO Re-
search Center Updated: 2008-03-25 21:22:53 link -!http://en.pedaily.cn/Item.as-
px?id=195213
4. Patents filed by Panel for UWB!Method for demodulating dcm signals and ap-
paratus thereof and other methods are available on (https://patents.google.com/?
assignee=Panovel+Technology+Corporation
Moses Asom and Ngozi Bell are partners at Trans-Sahara Investment Corporation and spent sever-
al years in telecommunication technology development.
Moses Asom, Ngozi Bell October 16, 2019
