UWB debate highlighted at comms conference
By Patrick Mannion -- CommsDesign.com -- September 29, 2003 (11:26 a.m. EST)
SAN JOSE, Calif. — With the IEEE 802.15.3a working group's rapid progress toward defining an ultrawideband-based standard for high-speed, short-range communications stalled, leading members of the UWB technical community will converge here this week to gauge the state of the technology.
At an early session at this year's Communications Design Conference, a panel led by Jeffrey Reed, professor at Virginia Tech's Mobile and Portable Research Group (MPRG) will shed light on the issues separating the two remaining proposals for the high-rate standard. In addition, an even newer standard for ultra-low-power UWB applications (IEEE 802.15.4a) will be described, as will the possibility of long-range UWB applications — with an eye toward research believed to be currently underway in Russia.
"I'd like to sort out the difference between the two remaining 802.15.3a proposals," said Reed, referring to the Texas Instruments/Intel-led Multiband-OFDM Alliance's proposal, which is going head-to-head against a direct-sequence CDMA implementation originally proposed by Xtremespectrum Inc. The XSI proposal has also garnered support from Motorola, ParthusCeva, OKI Semiconductor and the Communication Research Lab.
The panel will feature proponents from both sides, namely Roberto Aiello, founder and CEO of MBOA member Staccato Communications Inc. (San Diego, Calif.) and John McCorkle, CTO of Xtremespectrum.
Reed said the issue of interference under FCC guidelines also will be addressed, particularly with respect to how measurements should made when testing for FCC compliance.
At the recent 802.15.3a meeting in Singapore, FCC compliance and interference were central issues in the devolution of that meeting from a technical discussion into politically-motivated grandstanding that resulted in allegations of filibustering designed to prevent a down-vote on one proposal. Indeed, according to sources close to the debate, the Singapore meeting raised serious questions about the IEEE process itself, to the point that some consider it might even be broken.
To address the interference concerns of those users most likely to be affected by UWB — namely the GPS community — Dennis Akos will join the panel. Akos is a research associate with the GPS Laboratory at Stanford University and a visiting professor at Lulea Technical University in Sweden.
Also clearing the UWB air will be Craig Barratt, CEO of Atheros Communications Inc. and Andy Rappaport, of August Capital, a venture capital firm that has invested in a number of wireless companies, including one UWB specialist. Together, these three wireless experts said they intend to cut through the hype and shed light on UWB realities.
Other groups are exploring new UWB applications. The most immediate is an effort by several companies to form another IEEE standard that would target ultra-low-power, low-data-rate positioning, sensor and other applications. With IEEE study-group status received in July, a group of companies, lead by General Atomics, Wisair and others, expects to have its standard, called IEEE 802.l5.4a, finalized by 2005. Jason Ellis of General Atomics, chair of the 802.15.4a study group, will lead the discussion here.
Conceding that group's work is in its very early stages, Ellis said there hase been progress. "Four months ago, this was just a pipe dream for some UWB companies. Now it's caught traction with consumer electronic and semiconductor guys," he said. "Some have wanted to discuss — prematurely — the coexistence of .3a and .4a, but there's a good possibility there'll be two different radios."
Ellis said it's too early to specify any particular air interface, "But there's a strong belief that the final proposal will be UWB — but not definite," he said. To underscore the likelihood that it would be UWB based, he added that Mitsubishi Research Labs, which chairs the channel modeling group, is developing only a UWB-based channel model.
Stephen Griggs, program manager in the Advanced Technology Office at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa), will discuss future applications for UWB and what the military thinks UWB is capable of achieving. Griggs heads research on communications and networking programs at Darpa and leads networking, optical tags and "self-healing" minefield programs. The programs focus on tactical communications and ad-hoc networking in difficult and denied environments.
The session begin on Wednesday (Oct. 1) at 6.30 p.m. in Room A8 of the San Jose Convention Center.
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