The technology known today as Ultra-Wideband (UWB) has been the focus of research since early 1940’s. UWB has historically also been named micro impulse radio technology.
The fundamental principle of the UWB technology is emission of ultra-short micro wave pulses (with duration of pico- to nanoseconds and periodicity of nano- to microseconds) over a wide frequency range where the reflected pulses are interpreted. These pulses are able to penetrate most non-metallic materials.
One of the first commercial applications based on this research was ground penetrating radars (GPR) in the 1960’s. The nature of UWB transmitters is such that they share the same RF spectrum as other applications, which were seen as undesirable, hence there were laid restrictions by respective countries telecommunication authorities. In early 1990’s several research teams around the world came up with solutions for extremely low-energy output of UWB transmitters and receiver designs to detect this energy. Recently both the FCC and ETSI have released frequency bands for UWB use.
Today, UWB technology is found in various applications; wireless USB, short range radio systems, tracking and location systems, ground penetrating radars, and it’s sibling, the through wall vision systems. For the medical market there exists very few UWB based solutions, but there is a growing interest.