Cognitive UWB-OFDM: Pushing ultra-wideband beyond its limit via opportunistic spectrum usage

In a continuously expanding wireless world, the number of radio systems increases every day and efficient spectrum usage becomes a more significant requirement. Ultra-wideband (UWB) and cognitive radio are two exciting technologies that offer new approaches to the spectrum usage. The main objective of this paper is to shed the first light on the marriage of these two important approaches. The strength of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) based UWB in co-existing with licensed systems is investigated. The opportunity concept is defined, and the requirements of the opportunistic spectrum usage are explained. It is proposed to take the UWB-OFDM from the current underlay implementation, and evolve it to a combined underlay and opportunistic spectrum usage technology, leading to cognitive UWB-OFDM. This way, we aim at making UWB more competitive in the wireless market with extended range, higher capacity, better performance, and a wide variety of applications.