Ultrawide band
Ultrawide band (UWB) - A definition
Ultrawide band (UWB) is a radio technology. It can be used at very low energy levels for short-range high-bandwidth communications by using a larger portion of the radio spectrum. UWB has traditional applications in non cooperative radar imaging. Most recent applications target sensor data collection, precision locating and tracking applications. It is also being used as the. major wireless building block for advanced high-speed data communications.
UWB operates on the same spectrum as GPS systems, cellular phones, WiFi and other technologies, but should not cause disruption due to its extremely low power rate. Data transfer rates with UWB could be potentially as high as 1 Gigabit per second (1000 Mbps). At such a speed, UWB would be approximately 20 times faster than the current 802.11g standard often used for wireless local area networks (Hamblen 2004). By comparison, wired connections such as USB 2.0 can only reach speeds up to 480 Mbps, while the fastest available Firewire connection has a top speed of 800 Mbps
High Speed
Although UWB speeds are impressive, the technology is not a replacement for every existing wireless standard. While a single 802.11b/g Wi-Fi access point can often cover an entire house, and while the proposed WiMax standard could cover city areas, UWB-based applications will likely be limited to a single room. UWB is designed to transmit data at remarkably low power over broad swaths of spectrum, which reduces its transmission distance but works to effectively conserve energy.
The short distance range, low power consumption and high data transfer rate make UWB the first choice for consumer electronic products for primary data transmission Typical uses could include streaming a full length DVD movie from a laptop to a portable media player or printing out all the high definition pictures that have taken with a HD digital camera wirelessly to a printer without any PC involvement
Ultrawide band in consumer devices
UWB will soon be available in a wide range of devices such as in notebooks, camcorders, digital cameras, printers, cell phones, MP3 player or Portable Media Players. Wirelessly etc. It will be possible to stream all HD Video contents across different products at your home. No more messy cables. The best example of UWB usage is seen on the recently introduced Wireless USB. Many products shown at this year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) were making use of its technology already.
High Definition TV displays were streaming HD content using the UWB technology across the room or walls. There were also products like the Wireless USB Video adapter that can stream videos to multiple monitors wirelessly. Some of the most attractive displays were HDTVs equipped with UWB streaming HD Videos from Blue-Ray players, and the Toshiba Portege R400 docking station with more ports than one could ask for which connected using UWB frequencies. Lenovo will introduce the first Laptop with fully featured UWB this year.
UWB is one solution to cope with the every growing data volume demands of a wide range of modern digital devices.