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Ultrawideband Signal Passes Data Through Walls

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the wireless-fight-out dept.

writertype writes "You may already be familiar with ultrawideband; UWB technology has been specifically talked about and designed to replace wired USB connections for over a year. Due to its high bandwidth, it's also been considered as an A/V cable replacement. The problem is that UWB radio performance degrades precipitously, effectively confining it to a single room. Until now, that is. Startup TZero says its UWB implementation provides high throughput through walls. Will this be an effective competitor to 802.11n?"

10 of 139 comments (clear)

  1. 3.1GHZ Has trouble going through walls by IntelliAdmin · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The speed increases are nice with this technology. The problem is physics. As it stands UWB runs from 3.1GHZ to 10.6GHZ. Radio in this band operates much like visible light - it is easily blocked by walls and other obstacles. Because of this I think that 802.11b/a/c/n are going to be around for a long time

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    1. Re:3.1GHZ Has trouble going through walls by pe1chl · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Try 802.11g and 802.11a equipment side-by-side. You will find that the 802.11a (5.5 GHz) equipment has considerably more difficulty over non-line-of-sight paths than 802.11g (2.4 GHz) has.

    2. Re:3.1GHZ Has trouble going through walls by Moby+Cock · · Score: 4, Informative

      One major issue with UWB is the antenna design. Its proving very hard to built antennas that have constant gain over the whole BW. As a result, the antenna essentially induces a transfer function on the transmitted (or recieved) signal. It could be possible to compensate using DSP in the Tx or Rx circuits, however the transfer function is different for differing RF environments. That is, move the metal legged table in your living room and the compensation algorithms are no longer valid. There are a few new antenna designs being proposed that focus on ensuring the s21 values are constant over the whole UWB spectrum, but its still early days with those.

      The 'going through walls' part is a bit of a tempest in a teapot. That will come when the RF aspects of UWB are better designed.

  2. Quick response... by JPamplin · · Score: 5, Informative
    Will this be an effective competitor to 802.11n?

    Um, no. 802.11n has significantly greater range (as a spec, at least). Plus, if this company is claiming to have developed it, I don't think they will just give it up for free. 802.11n is a public standard.

    So, no. ;-)

    --
    Stiny! Get me a danish!
  3. Other uses by loraksus · · Score: 4, Interesting

    These folks didn't seem to have too much trouble trying to get the signal through walls ;)

    http://www.uwb.org/RadarVision2i/rv2iperf.htm
    That is a pretty primitive picture, some of the stuff in labs is quite a bit more advanced.

    BTW, is anyone noticing font corruption on that page in Firefox?

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  4. I don't know about you chaps by also-rr · · Score: 5, Funny

    But I find that for the best data rate through walls all that one requires is a sledge hammer and a fibre optic cable.

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    Think of the Children; Sleep with your Sister
    1. Re:I don't know about you chaps by CrazyJim1 · · Score: 4, Funny

      What about going through a wall with a Station Wagon full of backup tapes?

      --
      God spoke to me.
  5. Yea yea yea... by suv4x4 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    UWB technology has been specifically talked about and designed to replace wired USB connections for over a year. Due to its high bandwidth, it's also been considered as an A/V cable replacement.

    Yea, yea, yea... That sounds so desperately trying to hype it up. Just a month ago we were discussing that current digital A/V *cables* can't handle high enough resolutions for some larger (resolution) monitors out there, which requires two or even four DVI cables.

    We've discussed also how the new standard introduced, is just as bad (despite claims to "scale indefinitely", in theory, with other equipment and all that..).

    Now this is of course gonna replace everything, including food and water in one year. Therefore buy our shares and give us venture capital. Screw it.

    The problem is that UWB radio performance degrades precipitously, effectively confining it to a single room. Until now, that is. Startup TZero says its UWB implementation provides high throughput through walls. Will this be an effective competitor to 802.11n?

    I don't get it: we have enough problems with people logging into our wifi networks because it passes through walls already (even if it's password protected and so on, it can be hacked into), and now they found a way to do the same with UWB? I kinda like it in my room only, neighbours will have to buy theirs.

  6. n is still better by MooseTick · · Score: 4, Insightful

    802.11n makes many improvements over 11.g. It provides for greater redundancy(MIMO), security, speed(400MBPS+), and more distant coverage. It is also an open standard so anyone can use it without worring about paying someone license fees today, tomorrow, or 3 years from now when it is commonplace. Since its speed can allow multiple hdtv connections to stream at once and the costs should not be any greater than 11b or 11g devices, the n standard will soon dominate wireless networking and connections.

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    Ninjas don't carry tic tacs
  7. No Data by thePig · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The article (press release ??) has NO data whatsoever on how they solved this issue?
    Since the high frequency makes it *very* less able to go around objects, how did they do it indeed?
    Were they able to use EIT ?

    BTW, they did not speak about the degradation pattens in the article.
    Any ideas on the same?

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    rajmohan_h@yahoo.com