Pulse-Based Wideband Radio

Recently, a lot of attention went to a decision [Com02] of the Federal Communications Commission (fcc) to unblock 7,500 MHz of spectrum in the 3.1 to 10.6 GHz frequency band (Figure 5.1). Of course, this has generated a lot of interest from both industry and academics, since the enormous amount of bandwidth provides a lot of perspectives and new opportunities for broadband data communication applications, or the so-called Ultra-Wideband (uwb) systems. From a marketing point of view, devices that are able to use such a large amount of spectrum will become the perfect replacement for the video cable, wireless lan and are at the same time the ‘enablers’ for new technologies with odd names such as there is the cable-free universal serial bus (cable-free usb) and the even more remarkable wireless firewire.¹ However, things are not always as they seem to be and have to be put in perspective.