May 2006
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It's tempting to think of it as the ultimate stealth technology, coming seemingly from nowhere. But ultrawideband is actually an advanced, 40-year-old technology that has just recently reached the tipping point of commercial viability. Today, it commands intense interest in sectors such as security and inventory management.
Buzz matters in the high-tech business, and UWB could be considered "this year's RFID"—the hot emerging technology of the moment. But while the comparison is apt, there's one important difference: Ultrawideband seems poised for a much faster commercial takeoff.
The UWB technology proposition is compelling (see below). UWB is a wireless technology capable of transmitting nearly 500 megabits of data per second, while using very little power and without interfering with existing local area or wireless networks or telephony systems; future data rates are expected to exceed five gigabits per second. UWB nodes measure the time it takes a radio pulse to travel between two points, and can extrapolate the distance based on the known frequency velocity of signals through air. For an anticipated cost of only $2 to $4 per UWB node, enterprises will soon be able to determine the exact three-dimensional location of high-value objects, in real time.
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The UWB business case is equally compelling. Soon, for example, the first widely available UWB applications will replace USB connections between PCs and their peripherals, as well as hardwire cable connections between televisions and the in-ground networks that supply their content.
Accenture Technology Labs is already focused on the next application wave: UWB's potential as a tool for tracking high-value "assets," such as patients in hospitals, or the elderly in their homes. We can easily imagine UWB's usefulness for firefighters in high-risk, time-sensitive, low-visibility environments, where knowing one's own location is critical. Another logical destination for UWB deployment would be petroleum and natural gas refineries, where high asset value and the high cost of human error make investment worthwhile.
Forty Years in the Making
Like many emerging technologies, UWB is not new at all. It was originally developed for military purposes as a tangential development to radar—in this case, a technology capable of "seeing" beneath the ground and through walls. Until two years ago, that is where UWB stayed—a restricted-use, niche technology, facing the usual array of technical, financial and conceptual impediments to further development.
Things began to move when the conceptual leap was made—from thinking of UWB as a purely detective medium to one with broader communications possibilities. Eventually, with development of the means to convert the underlying UWB technology from analog to digital, the way was open to large-scale manufacturing possibilities, and thus a dramatic reduction in costs. Lower costs, in turn, fed the interest of industry, which began pushing on a number of commercial and regulatory fronts.
At the moment, activity in groundbreaking ultrawideband applications is spread very unevenly. Ninety percent of new applications are currently focused on high-data-rate, close-range applications such as USB replacement. Eventually, the mix will shift toward the other basic category: long-range, lower-data-rate applications. The US military—traditionally a huge and sophisticated incubator of new technologies—has several UWB pilots in this class, including one that enables commanders to follow the maneuvering and performance of soldiers in training.
When otherwise conservative technology experts use terms such as revolutionary and disruptive to describe UWB, they are usually speaking about its commercial potential in arenas like supply chain management. The ability of a UWB node to produce data about not only location and position but also three-dimensional attributes such as size, weight and temperature—all in real time—has major implications for leading supply chain enterprises. We are watching these developments closely.
The Internet of Things
UWB is one of 42 emerging technologies that Accenture Technology Labs thinks will be important during the next three to five years. It represents the fulfillment of what we have called the coming "Internet of Things," which will take the current Internet model of "people-to-computers" networked interaction and extend it with parallel "object-to-object" networks of interaction. We see embedded technology and service-oriented architecture as the other two legs of this new networking paradigm.
Now, with UWB, assets using embedded IT will become increasingly capable of answering "smart object" questions such as "Where am I?" or "What can you tell me about myself?" and then (through SOA applications) integrating and analyzing the data to make it actionable. From there, it is not hard to imagine the rapid development of ad hoc networks, which will gain critical mass and reach their own tipping points of independent viability.
Sidebar: How Ultrawideband Works
UWB users will need to make trade-off decisions between just two options for data throughput, power levels and physical distance. In near-proximity applications (10 meters or less), UWB can transmit coded data at a rate of up to 480 megabits per second, speeds useful for wireless USB connections. For longer-distance applications (up to about 20 meters), UWB can transmit data at less than 2 megabits per second, a level well matched to asset tracking. In either case, UWB offers precise three-dimensional location information at significantly less cost and lower power demands.
UWB's unique ability to broadcast "on top of" other bands in its range, without interference, is already shifting the regulatory framework that governs spectrum allocation. In the United States, this has moved the Federal Communications Commission from its customary role as the allocator and watchdog of frequency bandwidth to one as the monitor of power output.
Sidebar: The UWB Standards Shakeout
At Accenture Technology Labs, we regard industry-standards battles as a typical stage in the maturity cycle of any new technology, one that marks its commercial arrival. Standards shakeouts signal that a nascent technology is now important enough to figure in discussions about future revenue streams. In early 2006, after three years of wrangling, UWB task forces set up to establish UWB standards agreed to disagree, abandoned the goal of a common industry standard and went their separate ways. Behind the disagreement: competing commercial agendas, driven by competing UWB alliances that are staking out their early positions.
Three years ago, venture capital—always a leading indicator of a technology's place on the development curve—began to flow into UWB startups, including Alereon, Wisair and Staccato Communications. Within a year, such major companies as Intel Corporation, Texas Instruments, Sony Corporation and Motorola were rumored to be prospecting for smaller UWB companies with which to partner. At the moment, two major coalitions—each with its own, noncompatible standard—are in contention for the future of UWB: the UWB Forum, led by Motorola and its spinoff, Freescale Semiconductor; and the WiMedia Alliance, which includes Samsung, Sharp Laboratories of America, TI, Microsoft Corporation and Intel. (Shades of VHS versus Beta?)
At this point, it is difficult to say which standard will prevail. It is worth noting that Bluetooth, the powerful, "branded" consumer-electronics consortium, has taken the preemptive position of designating UWB as an approved "overlay" technical protocol for its next-generation developments, without committing to either of the two competing standards.
Don Rippert is based in Reston, Virginia.
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