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Ultra-Wide Band And Bluetooth Working Together
judgecorp writes "This week the Bluetooth people adopted UWB as a future fast connection. What not many people have spotted is - the big winner in this could be UWB.. Sure, Bluetooth is a slow protocol for headsets, and UWB is, potentially, much much more. But Bluetooth is established. It's in phones and regulators understand it. If Bluetooth likes UWB, that could really be a major factor to convince the people that are blocking UWB - operators and regulators outside the US - that UWB is safe to use."
Heh. They're expanding the descriptors too fast.. we went straight from broadband to ultrawideband. What's next, megahugeband? Kinda running out of options after that. What happened to moderation? Something like broaderband.
Starts getting ridiculous after that: superultrawideband, hyperbroadband, megabroadwidebroadband... uberband? Guess we could move on to Roseanneband, or Kirstieband.
Or maybe we could just skip all that and go straight to plaidband.
Hokey statistics and ancient misconceptions are no match for a good thought in your head, kid!
Interference?
Does it actually cause interference?
How can you mass market this to people who actaully use it? Most businessmen don't know what they are buying, so what would provoke them to buy it? In the long run, the question still remains if this will be useful.
I thought the potential applications for this were huge. Isn't this the same technology that would allow people to talk on their cell phone hundreds of meters below ground without distortion? What exactly is the danger with the technology?
Don't you mean Broderbund? :)
http://nerdfortress.com/
Sure, Bluetooth is a slow protocol for headsets, and UWB is, potentially, much much more. /clip
Uhh... much more slow? Why do you say that? And if so, why is it slower. And if slower, why do you say that? (INFINTE LOOP)
It took over two hours. Plus the file got corrupted on both machines.
UWB has been the latest buzz for a while. Reminded me when I, Cringely was all over it making it out to be the next big thing. That was in 2002 though. Time will tell....
sure I'll have a sig.
The term "ultra wideband" is a relatively new term to describe a technology which had been known since the early 1960's as "carrier-free", "baseband" or "impulse" technology. The basic concept is to develop, transmit and receive an extremely short duration burst of radio frequency (RF) energy - typically a few tens of picoseconds (trillionths of a second) to a few nanoseconds (billionths of a second) in duration. These bursts represent from one to only a few cycles of an RF carrier wave. The resultant waveforms are extremely broadband, so much so that it is often difficult to determine an actual RF center frequency - thus, the term "carrier-free". Early methods of signal generation utilized "baseband" (i.e., non-RF), fast rise-time pulse excitation of a wideband microwave antenna to generate and radiate the antenna's effective "impulse" response. (More precisely, it is the antenna's "step" response that is actually produced.) More modern UWB systems, such as those developed by MSSI, no longer utilize direct impulse excitation of an antenna because of the inability of such an approach to adequately control emission bandwidths and apparent center frequencies.
What are the advantages of UWB technology?
Since UWB waveforms are of such short time duration, they have some rather unique properties. In communications, for example, UWB pulses can be used to provide extremely high data rate performance in multi-user network applications. For radar applications, these same pulses can provide very fine range resolution and precision distance and/or positioning measurement capabilities. In fact, multifunction architectures encompassing communications, radar and positioning applications have been developed. These short duration waveforms are relatively immune to multipath cancellation effects as observed in mobile and in-building environments. Multipath cancellation occurs when a strong reflected wave - e.g., off of a wall, ceiling, vehicle, building, etc. - arrives partially or totally out of phase with the direct path signal, causing a reduced amplitude response in the receiver. With very short pulses, the direct path has come and gone before the reflected path arrives and no cancellation occurs. As a consequence, UWB systems are particularly well suited for high-speed, mobile wireless applications. In addition, because of the extremely short duration waveforms, packet burst and time division multiple access (TDMA) protocols for multi-user communications are readily implemented. As bandwidth is inversely related to pulse duration, the spectral extent of these waveforms can be made quite large. With proper engineering design, the resultant energy densities (i.e., transmitted Watts of power per unit Hertz of bandwidth) can be quite low. This low energy density translates into a low probability of detection (LPD) RF signature. An LPD signature is of particular interest for military applications (e.g., for covert communications and radar); however, an LPD signature also produces minimal interference to proximity systems and minimal RF health hazards, significant for both military and commercial applications. Among the most important advantages of UWB technology, however, are those of low system complexity and low cost. UWB systems can be made nearly "all-digital", with minimal RF or microwave electronics. Because of the inherent RF simplicity of UWB designs, these systems are highly frequency adaptive, enabling them to be positioned anywhere within the RF spectrum. This feature avoids interference to existing services, while fully utilizing the available spectrum.
A quick read of the first article mentions that this is intended for distances of 2-4 meters. That would make it great for improved headsets. PDA's, MP3 Players, and cellphone viruses should also benefit.
Bacardi + slashdot = negative karma.
Ludicrousbits per second? Isn't that the throughput of plaidband?
Hokey statistics and ancient misconceptions are no match for a good thought in your head, kid!
ELF, SLF, ULF, VLF, LF, MF, HF, VHF, UHF, SHF, EHF.
LF and MF are "Low" and "Medium" which basically covers everything up to 3 MHz. Everything above that was HF, or "High". This was fine around 1930. In fact, HF (3-30MHz) was considered a useless "junk" band at the time.
But alas, technology led to higher frequencies, and so "Very High" frequency was born.
Then came "Ultra High". This eventually still wasn't enough, which is why "Super High" came about.
Finally we have "Extremely High", which is good up to 300GHz. There isn't a designator for stuff beyond that, although terms like "Ridiculously High" and "F*cking High" get bandied about.
PS: The same prefixes also work for going low frequency; for example "Extremely Low" corresponds to 3 to 30 Hz.
Bluetooth being part of a high-speed wireless standard not only means means backward compatibility (with phones, printers etc.) but also low power activity checks.
Waiting for data would be light on battery usage if handled by bluetooth 2 and when the datastream is bigger then a mp3 stream the chipset would activate its wideband core (bluetooth 3?) and start sucking battery like wifi stuff does.
It would also be nice to toggle between low and high-speed based on the length of your trip and wether you need a steady long duration connection (chatting on battery power) or need something as fast as possible (must have datafile before i leave the train / coffee-bar).
to convince the people that are blocking UWB - operators and regulators outside the US - that UWB is safe to use.
/. story saying "UWB approved despites international security warnings" in a year or so.
Expect a
Bluetooth is dying, and good riddance. In a year we will use WLAN-enabled phones and accessories, with no reduction in battery time.
There's a prototype b/g chip for phones which uses less power than bluetooth in standby and just a little more when active.
Together they'll form, Mechashiva!
Mechashiva! Mechashiva!
Are you kidding?
...
Yeah, right. And WMD will be found tomorrow.
Sorry, I don't believe in your fairy tales. Try another \.er
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Rarely do you find such enlightened and insightful posts anywhere on the Internet, let alone Slashdot. Such beautiful expression of the English language and enough depth to engulf even the most brilliant of minds.
Sir, I'm in awe!
Sorry folks, I forgot to put the source. I was editing and adding something and it got misplaced along with some other information. No intention of taking the credit or passing that text as my own. Multispectral solutions has a well written FAQ and needs no rewording. Thanks for pointing it out. :)
UWB's combination of broader spectrum and lower power improves speed and reduces interference with other wireless spectra. In the United States, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has mandated that UWB radio transmissions can legally operate in the range from 3.1 GHz up to 10.6 GHz, at a limited transmit power of -41dBm/MHz. Consequently, UWB provides dramatic channel capacity at short range that limits interference. When used as intended, the emerging short- and medium-range wireless standards vary widely in their implicit spatial capacities. For example: IEEE 802.11b has a rated operating range of 100 meters. In the 2.4GHz ISM band, there is about 80MHz of useable spectrum. Hence, in a circle with a radius of 100 meters, three 22MHz IEEE 802.11b systems can operate on a non-interfering basis, each offering a peak over-the-air speed of 11Mbps. The total aggregate speed of 33Mbps, divided by the area of the circle, yields a spatial capacity of approximately 1,000 bits/sec/square-meter. Bluetooth, in its low-power mode, has a rated 10-meter range and a peak over-the-air speed of 1Mbps. Studies have shown that approximately 10 Bluetooth "piconets" can operate simultaneously in the same 10-meter circle with minimal degradation yielding an aggregate speed of 10Mbps [3]. Dividing this speed by the area of the circle produces a spatial capacity of approximately 30,000 bits/sec/square-meter. IEEE 802.11a is projected to have an operating range of 50 meters and a peak speed of 54Mbps. Given the 200MHz of available spectrum within the lower part of the 5GHz U-NII band, 12 such systems can operate simultaneously within a 50-meter circle with minimal degradation, for an aggregate speed of 648Mbps. The projected spatial capacity of this system is therefore approximately 83,000 bits/sec/square-meter. UWB systems vary widely in their projected capabilities, but one UWB technology developer has measured peak speeds of over 50Mbps at a range of 10 meters and projects that six such systems could operate within the same 10-meter radius circle with only minimal degradation. Following the same procedure, the projected spatial capacity for this system would be over 1,000,000 bits/sec/square-meter.
Sounds like a fundamental misunderstanding of the problem.
You are in a maze of twisted little posts, all alike.
yea me to lol
Bluetooth isn't really a WLAN technology, it was meant for wireless personal area networks, like using wireless headsets with phones and wireless keyboards with computers. Its transcievers are much rather inexpensive and it is short range & low power. It is a much more general idea than, for example, WIFI, which was specifically for LAN applications.
"Physics is to math what sex is to masturbation." - Richard Feynman
What happened to Wireless USB? Bluetooth was supposed to by dying because it was going to be accepted better by the market because of the USB association. What did I miss?
How about "Molar"..." combination of broader spectrum and lower power improves speed and reduces interference with other wireless spectra."
//Nothing to see here, please move along.
thank you, thank you very much.
bluetooth was a "protocol". I know that Bluetooth has protocols. Such as Link manager, base band, L2CAP, RFCOMM and things like that.
Bluetooth is made of several layers. In fact the software stack is listed as whole seperate product. That part of Bluetooth would be the same. What would change is the physical layer. (RF Link). Think of the RF side as a cable....thats it. I'm sure they would add some new profiles though. Maybe even beef up the VDP profile.
Anyhow,Bluetooth is not a headset protocol, its a cable replacement technology.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra_wideband
But Bluetooth is established. It's in phones and regulators understand it
Yes, regulators "understand" it because it uses standard RF modulation techniques. Regulators are wary about UWB because it doesn't, and there is no way to calculate the effect of millions of UWB users on the overall noise floor.
I don't follow the leap from "regulators understand Bluetooth" to "regulators will ignore the issues with UWB".