Most of the ongoing drama about UltraWideBand technology centers on high speed media and PC networks and the battle to dominate the digital home. But the low power system can, and will, be applied to many systems and applications, some less controversial than the stand-off between the WiMedia Alliance and Pulse~Link in multimedia networking. One is Sony’s TransferJet, which supports extremely short range connections, particularly geared to linking media devices such as digital cameras to television sets. The Japanese giant has assembled a supporters’ group of 14 companies behind the technology it launch in January this year, with what appears to be a good chance of establishing a de facto standard.
The technology was first demonstrated at January’s Consumer Electronics Show and now Sony says development will be considerably accelerated by the formation of the group, which will develop an open specification for a network supporting data rates up to 560Mbps over very short distances (up to 1.25 inches) in the 4.5GHz band. The supporters include most of Japan’s consumer electronics majors – including Canon, Pioneer, Seiko Epson, Hitachi, Nikon, Olympus, Panasonic and Toshiba ‘ and other members include Kodak, Toshiba and Sony Ericsson plus operator KDDI.
The first application demonstrated was a contactless link between a camera and TV, to display photos on the TV screen, and the participation of Sony Ericsson points to an area where it could steal a march on other phone makers, thanks to its Sony parentage ‘ the joint venture is heavily focused on camera phones and associated services under its Cybershot brand. Sony expects to ship its own TransferJet products some time next year, though this will not, it says, dampen its support for other UWB-based standards in other application areas, notably Wireless USB.
One of the benefits of TransferJet is its simple ‘touch-to-associate’ user model. This is achieved by incorporating the Sony/Philips NFC (near field communication) contactless technology, which powers apps such as swipecards, within the UWB-based system. For instance, the photos are displayed on the TV simply by placing the camera on top of the set, with no further intervention required by the user. Other applications may include paid-for mobile content, with NFC handling micropayments ‘ as it already does in many markets such as transport smartcards ‘ and TransferJet downloading the content.
Unlike WiMedia, which is OFDM-based, or Pulse~Link CWave, which uses pulse techniques, TransferJet employs a DSSS (direct sequence spread spectrum) modulation scheme in which the transmitted signal takes up more bandwidth than the information signal that is being modulated. This will find it easier than the other approaches to gain regulatory clearance around the world, claims Sony, especially as confining the technology to very short distances reduces fears of interference.
Sony says it is targeting applications where it is natural for the user to place devices very close together, making it unnecessary to grapple with the usual challenge of boosting data rates over ever longer distances. Ko Togashi, deputy general manager of network software development, said at CES: ‘Rather than racing to offer a faster data rate at a longer distance, we asked ourselves, ‘what if we kept the wireless distance very short?'” and avoided the need for complex networks.