High-speed short-range systems for wireless personal area networks

With the advance in wireless technology, latest generation of wireless personal area networks (WPANs) can provide a data rate of hundreds (or even thousands) of Mbps at a distance of less than 10 meters. This paper reports the latest development of high-speed WPANs. Systems like Certified Wireless USB, Bluetooth 3.0, WirelessHD, and TransferJet will be reported in this paper. Since ultra-wideband (UWB) technology has been adopted in many high-speed WPANs, this paper also discusses technical challenges and applications of UWB-based WPANs.

I. Introduction

In recent years, wireless technologies play important roles in the telecommunications industry. Wireless Wide Area Networks (WWANs), such as GSM and UMTS; and Wireless Metropolitan Area Networks (WMANs), such as IEEE 802.16, provide widest geographical coverage. Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs), such as IEEE 802.11 series, aim to provide network access in enterprises and public buildings. Applications of WLANs have now extended to home networking. Wireless Personal Area Networks (WPANs), such as IEEE 802.15.1 (Bluetooth 1.0), provide coverage of less than 10 meters. Bluetooth 2.1, with a data rate of about 3Mbps, has become the popular choice for data communications between personal devices, such as mobile phones, headsets and Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs). Recently, ultra-wideband (UWB) based WPANs have received much attention [1]–[4]. Table I summarizes the basic characteristics of these wireless networks. TABLE I B<sc>asic characteristics of wireless networks</sc>

Class	Radio Coverage	Examples	Typical applications
WWAN	> 10 km	GSM, UMTS	Mobile Internet access
WMAN	<10 km	IEEE 802.16	Broadband Internet access
WLAN	< 100 m	IEEE 802.11	File sharing
WPAN	< 10 m	IEEE 802.15.1, UWB	Hand-free