This year has seen some revolutionary changes for Ultra-wideband
(UWB) technology, beginning with the February 14th announcement by the FCC
that legalized the use of UWB techniques for imaging systems, vehicular
radar systems, and communications and measurement systems. The allocation
of 7.5 GHz worth of new, unlicensed spectrum that can be used for communications
and measurement techniques, in particular, has sparked a renewed interest
in both research and development of UWB technology in industry, universities,
and government offices. As UWB technology looks to make significant in-roads
in the commercial marketplace, the organizers of this workshop decided it
was appropriate to bring together these different groups involved in the
research and development of the technology to share recent results, uncover
technical challenges, and discuss future research directions. Although a
significant amount of work on UWB technology has taken place during the
last two decades, there still remains a lot to be done for this technology
to become pervasive in the industry using the newly defined FCC regulations.
Some of the important issues that remain include: world-wide regulatory
approval, low-cost and low-power designs for high volume manufacturing,
and novel system architectures that allow for peaceful coexistence with
other narrowband systems while maximizing total system capacity. As advanced
technologies continue to develop in industry, academic, and government settings,
it’s critical to keep an open door between them to help reduce the
time gap between research and development. This workshop has been organized
as a series of panel sessions that are designed to maximize audience participation
and encourage open discussion. A total of five sessions are planned, which
are described below, and will cover a number of topics from industry status
to hardware design to coexistence. These sessions will provide a venue for
open discussion with leaders in the field, giving the audience an excellent
perspective on a broad range of issues related to UWB technology.
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