Glossary · Industrial wireless and positioning
Ultra-wideband (UWB)
Also known as: UWB, Ultra-wideband radio
German: Ultrabreitband (UWB)
In wireless communication, ultra-wideband (UWB) is a radio technology that transmits very short pulses over a bandwidth of 500 MHz or more at low power, which allows precise time-of-flight ranging and indoor positioning. The IEEE 802.15.4 standard, including its 802.15.4z amendment, specifies UWB physical layers.
- Industrial wireless
- Standards
In one sentence
Ultra-wideband (UWB) sends very short low-power pulses over a wide bandwidth, allowing precise ranging and indoor positioning.
Example
Forklifts carry UWB tags, and the warehouse system tracks their positions with decimeter accuracy to route them and prevent collisions in blind corners.
How it applies
- Engineering: UWB's short pulses allow precise timestamps, so distances can be measured with decimeter accuracy under good conditions. Real-time locating systems use fixed anchors and mobile tags.
- Regulation: UWB operates at very low power densities under specific regional rules, which limit frequency ranges and use cases. Check the approvals for each market.
- Safety: Positioning systems are sometimes used to support collision warnings. If such a function is safety-related, the whole system, including radio behavior and failure modes, has to be designed and validated for it; the technology alone doesn't provide a safety function.
- Documentation: The documentation team documents accuracy under stated conditions, anchor placement rules, update rates, battery life and radio regulatory information.
UWB vs. BLE positioning
Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) positioning based on signal strength is cheaper but usually accurate only to meters. UWB uses time-of-flight and reaches decimeters, at higher infrastructure cost.