PulsON
- The Pulse of the Future
Time Domain has developed PulsON
chipsets and chip designs based upon the Time Modulated Ultra Wideband
(TM-UWB) architecture. PulsON technology places individual 'pulses'
at very precise time intervals and transmits the pulses across an ultra
wideband spectrum. The result: a low power, noise-like signal that can
transmit data, voice and video communications or can be used as a personal
radar, or as a positioning a tracking device. The TM-UWB architecture was
conceived by Larry Fullerton as a means to enable bandwidth in the increasingly
crowded spectrum. The TM-UWB architecture is radically different from the
traditional 'sine wave' architecture used in current wireless technology
such as CDMA, TDMA, and FHSS
Historical
Reference: Since
the late 1880s, when wireless communications were first demonstrated, all
practical uses of radio have relied on the transmission of continuous sine
waves. The modulation of those sine waves allows the transmission and reception
of information in either amplitude (AM radio) or frequency (FM radio).
From 1890 to the present, industry has searched relentlessly for ways to
send more information more reliably. Radio researchers have evolved techniques
such as CDMA, TDMA, etc.
 Now,
the entire wireless landscape has
changed. Larry Fullerton discovered that single RF monocycles could be
transmitted through an antenna, and by precisely positioning these monocycles
in time and then using a matched receiver to recover the transmissions,
a whole new wireless medium was created. PulsON, an ultra wideband
pulse technology, does not rely on sine waves, does not require an assigned
frequency, does not need a power amplifier, and is so random and low powered
that it is indistinguishable from noise. This technique precisely places
pulses in TIME (pulses are positioned with an accuracy of trillionths of
a second), and coherently recovers the pulse-times in a correlating receiver.
Larry Fullerton developed and patented the core technology.
|
Continuous
Sine Waves vs. Coherent Cyclets
|
|
|
| Continuous sine waves
are transmitted with information embedded in the modulation of the wave's
amplitude or frequency. This technology is approaching its limit in being
able to improve bandwidth (amount of information sent) and channelization
(number of users). |
Coded cyclets,
transmitted and measured precisely in time can carry orders of magnitude
more data and support an essentially unlimited number of users. (Think
of it as super high-speed Morse Code with 40 million dots and dashes per
second.) |
|
TM
Wireless: 2GHz Spectrum Spread
Conventional signals transmitted in
the frequency domain are highly "visible" electronically because all the
power is packed into a narrow bandwidth, for example: 1 watt over 1 MHz.
PulsON technology transmits millions of unstructured coded monocycles
(pulses) per second with emissions indistinguishable from noise and across
an ultra wideband - yielding a virtually undetected communications link. |
 |
To understand
this technology better, Time Domain offers several in depth technical papers:
-
Multiple
Access with Time-Hopping Impulse Modulation, by R. A. Scholtz,
Invited Paper, IEEE MILCOM '93, Boston, MA, Oct. 11-14, 1993
-
In-building
Propagation of Ultra-wideband RF Signals, by Paul Withington of
Time Domain Corporation
-
Ultrawideband
beamforming in sparse arrays, by F. Anderson, W. Christensen, L.
Fullerton & B. Kortegaard, IEEE Proceedings - H, Vol. 138, No.
4, August 1991
Also, more information
on UWB in general can be found on the Ultra Wideband Working Group site;
http://www.uwb.org.
Time Domain
utilizes a Silicon Germanium process for fabrication of our SiGe PicoTimer
and PicoCorrelator. Nextek
Inc. is the company's manufacturing partner and provides advanced
technology assembly services.
Click here for
the URSI Radar Presentation
given 1/4/99.
|
