Overview and Implications of the Emerging Global UWB Radio Regulatory Framework

The globally emerging UWB radio regulatory framework treats the original key feature of this technology, i.e., license-free emission of very-low-power signals across bands possibly assigned to radiocommunication services, as a serious liability. The prospect of improving radio-spectrum usage by broad global deployment of UWB radio technology critically hinges on finding agreeable solutions for the various coexistence issues between UWB radio devices and affected radiocommunication services. When viewed from a global perspective, the foreseeable fragmented and rather restrictive rules greatly challenge the economic viability and technical compatibility of many anticipated UWB radio applications. Thus, it becomes crucial to exploit the limits set by regulations in the most effective way. We first review the status of globally relevant regulatory processes and identify the one frequency band where simple single-mode UWB radios could potentially operate globally. We then investigate some aspects of the power constraints on UWB signals and conclude that these limits can be best exploited in low PRF radios, typically used in wireless sensor and location-tracking applications.