UWB technology provides an excellent means for wireless positioning due to its high resolution capability in the time domain. Its ability to resolve multipath components makes it possible to obtain accurate location estimates without the need for complex estimation algorithms. In this article, theoretical limits for TOA estimation and TOA-based location estimation for UWB systems have been considered. Due to the complexity of the optimal schemes, suboptimal but practical alternatives have been emphasized. Performance limits for hybrid TOA/SS and TDOA/SS schemes have also been considered. Although the fundamental mechanisms for localization, including AOA-, TOA-, TDOA-, and SS-based methods, apply to all radio air interface, some positioning techniques are favored by UWB-based systems using ultrawide bandwidths.

Localization via ultra-wideband radios: a look at positioning aspects for future sensor networks

Ultra-wideband (UWB) radio is a fast emerging technology with many unique attractive features that promotes major advances in wireless communications, networking, radar, imaging, and positioning systems. Research in UWB is still in its infancy stages, offering limited resources in handling the challenges facing the UWB communications. Understanding the unique properties and challenges of UWB communications as well as its application in competent signal processing techniques are vital in conquering the obstacles towards developing exciting UWB applications. UWB research and development has to cope with the challenges that limit their performance, capacity, throughput, network flexibility, implementation complexity, and cost. This tutorial focuses on UWB wireless communications at the physical layer. It overviews the state-of-the-art UWB in channel modeling, transmitters, and receivers of UWB radios, and outlines the research directions and challenges that needs to be overcome. Since a signal processing expertise is expected to have major impact in research and development of UWB systems, emphasis is placed on the DSP aspects.

Ultra-wideband communications: an idea whose time has come

A monitoring system includes one or more wireless nodes forming a wireless mesh network; a user activity sensor including a wireless mesh transceiver adapted to communicate with the one or more wireless nodes using the wireless mesh network; and a digital monitoring agent coupled to the wireless transceiver through the wireless mesh network to request assistance from a third party based on the user activity sensor.

Mesh network personal emergency response appliance

A heart monitoring system for a person includes one or more wireless nodes; and a wearable appliance in communication with the one or more wireless nodes, the appliance monitoring vital signs.

Health monitoring appliance

A health care monitoring system for a person includes one or more wireless nodes forming a wireless mesh network; a wearable appliance having a sound transducer coupled to the wireless transceiver; and a heart attack or stroke attack sensor coupled to the wireless mesh network to communicate patient data over the wireless mesh network to detect a heart attack or a stroke attack.

Mesh network stroke monitoring appliance

Previously, the authors have invented and experimented with a new radio communications scheme called delay-hopped transmitted-reference (DHTR) radio. This technique can function either as an impulse radio, or can employ a more traditional spread-spectrum carrier such as broadband noise. The DHTR method is well-suited to short-range transmissions in a high multipath environment, and, in contrast to time-modulated impulse radio, is easy to synchronize at the receiver. Finally, DHTR receivers and transmitters are not highly complex, and can be implemented in a cost-effective way.

Delay-hopped transmitted-reference RF communications

A system and method involve tracking the location of objects within an area of interest using transmitted-reference ultra-wideband (TR-UWB) signals. The system includes at least three base stations communicating with a central processor, at least one mobile device and at least one fixed beacon transmitter of known location. The mobile device is equipped with a transmitter for transmitting a TR-UWB signal to a base station, which then determines a location of the mobile device based on time difference of arrival information between the beacon transmitters and mobile devices measured at all the base stations. Preferably, the area of interest includes a plurality of mobile devices each transmitting a delay-hopped TR-UWB signal according to a code-division multiple access scheme. The mobile devices may be attached to a patient and/or a medical asset within the hospital for tracking purposes. Additionally, patient medical information may be transmitted with the TR-UWB signals to allow patient monitoring to occur simultaneously with asset/patient tracking.

Transmitter location for ultra-wideband, transmitted-reference CDMA communication system

Ultrasound is used to provide input data for a blood pressure estimation scheme. The use of transcutaneous ultrasound provides arterial lumen area and pulse wave velocity information. In addition, ultrasound measurements are taken in such a way that all the data describes a single, uniform arterial segment. Therefore a computed area relates only to the arterial blood volume present. Also, the measured pulse wave velocity is directly related to the mechanical properties of the segment of elastic tube (artery) for which the blood volume is being measured. In a patient monitoring application, the operator of the ultrasound device is eliminated through the use of software that automatically locates the artery in the ultrasound data, e.g., using known edge detection techniques. Autonomous operation of the ultrasound system allows it to report blood pressure and blood flow traces to the clinical users without those users having to interpret an ultrasound image or operate an ultrasound imaging device.

Method and apparatus for ultrasonic continuous, non-invasive blood pressure monitoring

Optical imaging systems are often limited in resolution, not by the imaging optics, but by the light intensity sensors on the image formation plane. When the sensor size is larger than the optical spot size, the effect is to smooth the image with a rectangular convolving kernel with one sample at each non-overlapping kernel position, resulting in aliasing. In some such imaging systems, there is the possibility of collecting multiple images of the same scene. The process of reconstructing a de-aliased high-resolution image from multiple images of this kind is referred to as “super-resolution image reconstruction.” We apply the POCS method to this problem in the frequency domain. Generally, frequency domain methods have been used when component images were related by subpixel shifts only, because rotations of a sampled image do not correspond to a simple operation in the frequency domain. This algorithm is structured to accommodate rotations of the source relative to the imaging device, which we believe helps in producing a well-conditioned image synthesis problem. A finely sampled test image is repeatedly resampled to align with each observed image. Once aligned, the test and observed images are readily related in the frequency domain and a projection operation is defined.

Super-resolution image synthesis using projections onto convex sets in the frequency domain

An integrated tracking, telemetry and local area networking system is provided. A communications system comprises a broadband subsystem comprising at least one UWB node including a first UWB transceiver and at least one application node linked to the UWB node by a broadband link. The system further comprises a wireless subsystem comprising at least one remote communicator, the remote communicator including a second UWB transceiver. The first and second UWB transceivers are configured to communicate with each other via an UWB communications link.

Ralph Thomas Hoctor

Papers

Delay-hopped transmitted-reference RF communications

Transmitter location for ultra-wideband, transmitted-reference CDMA communication system

Method and apparatus for ultrasonic continuous, non-invasive blood pressure monitoring

Super-resolution image synthesis using projections onto convex sets in the frequency domain

Integrated wireless broadband communications network