Yesterday, Xiaomi executive Zeng Xuezhong officially released the “One Finger Link” UWB technology through Weibo, which attracted widespread attention from the entire network.
According to the introduction, based on this “one-finger connection” technology, mobile phones and smart devices will have spatial perception capabilities, just like “indoor GPS.” When the mobile phone is pointed at the smart device, the control card will automatically pop up, allowing direct control.
▲Point the phone at the fan, the phone will pop up a quick control card, turn on the fan with one key
▲Point the mobile phone to the TV, the mobile phone becomes the TV remote control, and it can also cast the screen with one click
It has to be said that Xiaomi’s marketing capabilities are really strong, a technology that is not new, packaged and named, it just made the promotion effect of the world’s first. (Do not spray, I am also rice noodles)
That’s right, this UWB is the UWB that was launched simultaneously when Apple released the iPhone 11 on September 11 last year.
At that time, all iPhone11 series were equipped with U1 chips supporting UWB technology .
Apple once stated that the U1 chip will significantly enhance the spatial awareness (Spatial Awareness) capabilities of Apple’s iPhone. Through the Airdrop application, Apple also demonstrated rapid file sharing based on UWB technology.
It was also revealed at Apple’s autumn conference last month that Apple’s Apple Watch Series 6 will be equipped with U1 chips and ultra-wideband antennas to achieve spatial perception capabilities.
So the question is, what is spatial perception? What exactly is UWB technology? In addition to space perception, what else can UWB do?
Through this article, Jun Xiaozao will reveal the answers to these questions for you one by one.
What is spatial perception
The so-called spatial perception ability is the ability to perceive orientation. A more direct point is the positioning ability.
To put it bluntly, using UWB technology, mobile phones and smart devices can more accurately achieve indoor positioning, not only can sense their own location, but also the location of other nearby mobile phones or devices.
▲Xiaomi’s spatial perception
▲ Centimeter-level positioning capability
Speaking of positioning, I believe everyone is familiar with it. We often use apps such as Baidu Maps, which have positioning and navigation services.
Location services help us to grasp location information, indicate directions, increase our sense of security and control, and bring great convenience to our work and life.
So, what is the difference between UWB technology and the positioning technology we use now?
Our most commonly used positioning technology now is satellite positioning.
Satellite positioning is a technology that uses artificial earth satellites to measure points. Its characteristics are very obvious, that is, high precision, fast speed and low cost.
The well-known GPS, Beidou, etc., belong to the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), which can provide satellite positioning services. (Extended reading: What is the GNSS technology behind “Beidou”?)
In order to better eliminate errors and improve response speed, GNSS will introduce some space-based or land-based auxiliary methods. GNSS combined with auxiliary means is also called A-GNSS. A means Assisted, meaning “assisted”.
The more commonly used A-GNSS now transmits enhanced correction data through a land-based mobile communication network, provides auxiliary information, strengthens and speeds up the search and tracking performance and speed of satellite navigation signals, shortens positioning time, and improves positioning accuracy.
▲A-GNSS system architecture
Both GNSS and A-GNSS have an obvious shortcoming, that is, indoor positioning cannot be achieved. The reason is obvious, satellite signals will be blocked by buildings. However, with the development of the times, there are more and more business scenarios for indoor positioning, and users’ demands for indoor positioning are becoming stronger. Such as underground garage navigation, shopping malls to find shops or companions, and even children lost and found.
As a result, some people began to try to use various short-distance communication technologies to develop high-precision indoor positioning systems to meet user needs and make small money. The available technologies include Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, UWB, etc.
What is UWB
Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are familiar to everyone. What is UWB?
UWB stands for Ultra Wideband, ultra-wideband technology. It originated from the pulse communication technology that emerged in the 1960s.
Students who understand communication know that the general communication system uses a high-frequency carrier to modulate a narrowband signal, and the actual bandwidth occupied by the communication signal is not high.
And UWB is different from traditional communication technology, it realizes wireless transmission by sending and receiving extremely narrow pulses with nanosecond or microsecond or less. Due to the extremely short pulse time width, ultra-wideband in the spectrum can be achieved: the bandwidth used is above 500MHz.
The FCC (Federal Communications Commission) has allocated a total of 7.5 GHz from 3.1 to 10.6 GHz for UWB, and has also imposed stricter limits on its radiation power than FCC Part 15.209, limiting it to the 41.3 dBm frequency band.
In short, this technology achieves fast data transmission at low power consumption levels through ultra-large bandwidth and low transmit power.
Due to the extremely short time width of UWB pulses, high-precision timing can also be used for distance measurement.
Compared with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth positioning technology, UWB has the following advantages:
1) Strong anti-multipath capability and high positioning accuracy: The bandwidth determines the distance resolution capability of the signal in a multipath environment (in a proportional relationship). UWB has a very wide bandwidth and strong multipath resolution capability. It can distinguish and eliminate most of the effects of multipath interference signals and obtain highly accurate positioning results. UWB can be higher than other traditional systems in distance resolution, and its accuracy can even reach more than a hundred times that of traditional systems such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth under complex environments.
2) High time stamp accuracy: The bandwidth of the ultra-wideband pulse signal is in the nanosecond level. When calculating the position by timing, the error introduced is usually less than a few centimeters.
3) Strong electromagnetic compatibility: UWB has low transmitting power and wide signal bandwidth, which can be well concealed in other types of signals and environmental noise. Traditional receivers cannot recognize and receive, and must use the same spread spectrum as the transmitting end. The code pulse sequence can be demodulated, so it will not cause interference to other communication services, and at the same time, it can avoid interference from other communication devices.
4) High energy efficiency: UWB has a radio frequency bandwidth of more than 500MHz, which can provide great spread spectrum gain, making UWB communication systems more energy efficient. This means that for battery-powered equipment, the operating time of the system can be greatly extended, or under the same transmission power limitation, the coverage area is much larger than that of traditional technology. Generally, in short-distance applications, the transmit power of UWB transmitters is generally less than 1mW; in long-distance applications, it can reach a distance of 200 meters without additional power amplifiers, while achieving an air rate of 6.8Mbps.
Based on the above technical advantages, UWB can form a high-precision indoor positioning system.
Comparison of UWB and other positioning technologies
At present, there are three commonly used UWB ranging methods, namely: (1) TOF (Time of flight): The distance measurement is achieved by measuring the flight time of the UWB signal between the base station and the tag. (2) TDOA (Time Difference of Arrival): UWB signal is used to locate the time difference from the tag to each base station. (3) PDOA (Phase Difference Of Arrival): Use the angle of arrival phase to measure the azimuth relationship between the base station and the tag.
Due to space limitations, we will introduce the UWB algorithm principle in detail later.
UWB industry development
Before 2002, UWB was widely used for military purposes. In 2002, the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) imposed strict restrictions on UWB power as mentioned above before lifting the ban on UWB technology and allowing it to enter the civilian field.
Since then, UWB technology has entered a period of rapid development, and various technical solutions have also launched fierce competition around the formulation of UWB international standards.
In 2007, IEEE standardized the UWB technology in the 802.15.4a standard. After nearly ten years of development, UWB standards are constantly improving.
When it comes to the UWB industry chain, you have to mention Decawave.
Decawave is currently the only UWB positioning chip manufacturer known to support IEEE 802.15.4. They offer low-cost chips for sale, retail prices in a few dollars. The chip model is DW1000, which complies with the IEEE 802.15.4-2011 UWB standard protocol (under ideal conditions, the maximum measurable range is 300m).
▲DW1000 chip
Last year, after Apple’s product launch, INTRANAV, a positioning manufacturer based on the Decawave chip DW1000, posted two tweets, claiming that its kit supports interoperability with iPhone11, and Decawave also reposted the tweet. This shows that Apple U1 has a great possibility of supporting IEEE 802.15.4.
Other international manufacturers engaged in UWB technology research include Ubisense and BeSpoon.
These manufacturers use their own UWB solutions, usually in the form of a module kit, but none of them support IEEE 802.15.4.
To achieve better spatial perception, the support of application ecology is needed. In order to build the entire application ecosystem, the devices of different manufacturers need to achieve interoperability and compatibility. It is foreseeable that in the future, equipment from all manufacturers will likely support the IEEE 802.15.4 standard.
Xiaomi supports UWB this time, but it is not yet confirmed which specific industry chain partners are. Domestic companies currently claiming to be UWB, including Jingwei Technology, Lianrui Electronics, New Ruixin, Haoyun Technology, etc.
It is worth mentioning that there are still a large number of small and medium-sized entrepreneurial teams in China engaged in the development of UWB solutions, mainly for indoor high-precision positioning and smart homes, smart parks, smart factories and other scenarios.
Conclusion
At present, in addition to Apple and Xiaomi, Samsung is also very optimistic about UWB technology and believes that it will become one of the next generation of wireless communication technologies that can change the rules of the game.
The support of these first-tier manufacturers is believed to have a comprehensive promotion effect on UWB technology. The large-scale commercialization of UWB is expected to accelerate further. The maturity of the UWB upstream and downstream industrial chain will also accelerate.
As we all know, we are accelerating towards the era of Internet of Everything. Although 5G is now a hot topic, 5G cannot take all IoT scenarios. Short-distance communication technologies represented by Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth, and UWB still have a lot of room for development and market opportunities. These technologies can be closely integrated with subdivided IoT scenarios according to their own characteristics to provide users with a better service experience.
Can UWB live up to expectations and break out? let us wait and see!
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