Ultra-WideBand Wireless Systems

This project applies ultrawideband (UWB) technology to short-range communications and ranging systems. Because UWB technology is not fully developed, we are exploring both system and circuit design issues of a particular UWB system known as impulse radio, a baseband radio that communicates by propagating sub-nanosecond pulses. The potential characteristics of this radio are covertness (very low power density signal over an ultrawide bandwidth), very accurate ranging (down to a few centimeters), and good performance in dense multipath (because of fine time resolution).

Our research in UWB technology is aimed at understanding the system level capabilities and applications of UWB technology that have the potential to be competitive. In a radio environment, this corresponds to understanding propagation issues and how they affect radio design, determining the critical components in UWB technology, determining the link budgets and battery-power budgets, etc. We expect that UWB radios will be able to coexist with most radio systems and one of our immediate efforts is to determine if there are any serious issues in this regard.

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