The Power of UWB: A Single Technology Transforming Automotive, Mobile and Industrial IoT Experiences

Ultra-Wideband (UWB), the robust wireless communications technology commonly known as UWB, is such a versatile technology, capable of doing so many different things, that it can be hard to categorize.

For instance, UWB often serves as a ranging technology, used to pinpoint the whereabouts of an object, so it's easier to find things that can be misplaced or lost, like a wallet. Other times, UWB is a location technology, used to measure distance and determine the direction of motion, to navigate through large indoor spaces, such as airports and shopping malls. UWB location also lets other devices respond to the presence of your smartphone or smartwatch, so you can do things like lock or unlock your front door based on your location, or have your car respond to your approach by unlocking the driver door and starting the engine and then reversing the process when you leave.

UWB can also be a radar technology, used to sense both presence and movement, so it's easier to know if someone has left a room or track an object through a production facility. UWB radar can even be used to save lives, by detecting signs of life in an emergency or, more routinely, as part of child-detection systems in cars, which alert the driver if a child is detected in the rear seat of a parked car.

Drawing on a combination of these capabilities, UWB can make everyday systems smarter, safer and more autonomous. For example, UWB-equipped systems in the home, on the road, in medical facilities and industrial environments, can use varying combinations of ranging and radar to enable new kinds of spatial awareness, using presence, location and motion, to save energy, deliver higher degrees of autonomy, keep people safe, or just make familiar experiences more intuitive and more enjoyable.

Also, because UWB can easily be combined with other well-established wireless protocols, including Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Near Field Communication (NFC), developers are finding ways to optimize power consumption, simplify user interaction and add precision by using UWB in combination with other wireless protocols.

Industry Backing

Standardization is crucial for a technology like UWB that is set to enable various user experiences and services including device-to-device and device-to-infrastructure applications. The availability of chipsets help rollout of the technology and increased adoption in various verticals from consumer mobile and IoT devices to automotive. That resulted in the establishment of several different ecosystems to support the development of standards for interoperable UWB solutions addressing various segments. Here's a closer look at some of the key groups guiding UWB's evolution:

• The FiRa Consortium is a non-profit organization, founded in 2019 with the help of NXP, that promotes the use of UWB technology for use cases such as access control, location-based services and device-to-device services. FiRa has created a certification program, based on FiRa-developed test specifications and tools and primarily aimed at consumer-oriented devices, that demonstrates the interoperability of devices that use UWB for ranging and location.
• The Car Connectivity Consortium (CCC) , another standards organization in which NXP is a charter member, has been focused on vehicle-to-smartphone connectivity since 2011. The CCC specification for Digital Key, first released in 2018, is a smart electronics ecosystem, based on UWB, that enables mobile devices to securely store, authenticate and share digital keys for smart vehicles. The CCC Digital Key specification is supported by a certification program that serves to confirm the security and ensure the interoperability of vehicle access solutions.
• The Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA) , which NXP helped found in its original form, the ZigBee Alliance, is perhaps best known today as the group behind Matter, the interoperability standard for smart-home and Internet of Things (IoT) technology. In 2023, however, the CSA unveiled Aliro, a new standard that transforms how users unlock doors and other entry points using mobile devices or wearables. The Aliro protocol is backed by nearly 200 member companies (including NXP) and includes definitions for NFC, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and UWB. As with Matter, the CSA will establish a certification program for Aliro, to ensure a secured, convenient, consistent experience across devices.

As we envision a world where users can use their UWB enabled devices to interact with any other UWB enabled device be it the air conditioner at their home or to access their car, it requires an ecosystem play to develop secure and interoperable solutions. To create these kinds of seamless interactions, industry stakeholders, including FiRa, the CCC and the CSA, frequently collaborate. While they may, individually, focus on different aspects of UWB, they work together to foster interoperability, build scale and promote next-generation UWB use cases.

Presence in Smartphones

Another reason why UWB is growing quickly across such a broad spectrum of use cases is the fact that the technology is now a standard feature in the latest flagship smartphones from Apple, Google, Samsung, and others.

This creates a ready-made infrastructure for UWB functionality, and developers have been quick to take advantage. This is especially the case in consumer-oriented applications, such as asset trackers, digital keys and various smart-home devices, including fans, lamps and smart speakers, which interact with and respond to the presence of a UWB-enabled smartphone.

Having over a billion UWB enabled devices in the field, ABI Research expects that the annual shipments of UWB technology will be over 500 million by 2025. As more smartphones, smartwatches and other wearable/portable devices offer UWB as a standard feature, consumers will become increasingly familiar with the technology and that will, in turn, help drive demand for use cases that employ UWB.

Use Cases for Today and Tomorrow

As UWB continues to gain momentum, propelled forward by standards organizations and widespread availability on popular consumer devices, we anticipate UWB will become a standard part of systems that blend seamlessly with daily routines. Here are some examples of what's underway:

• Automotive: As mentioned above, UWB is already part of the CCC Digital Key specification, which lets drivers user their smartphones to automate and manage access to their vehicles. Users can open and start cars, without having to present their smartphone or smartwatch to the vehicle. To protect hands-free access, the UWB-enabled mobile device and the vehicle mutually authenticate and the vehicle verifies that the mobile device's CCC Digital Key authorizes the requested operation. What's more, secure ranging, with very precise time-of-flight measurement, prevents relay attacks, which use signal amplification to trick the vehicle into thinking that the mobile device is nearby when it's not.
  A growing trend for UWB in automotive is Rear Occupant Alert (ROA) systems, which are sometimes also called Child Presence Detection (CPD) systems. These are onboard systems that prevent children from being left behind in an overheating car ‐another major trend for UWB in automotive. Due to its robustness and precision, UWB radar can detect even very small physical movements, including the rise and fall of a baby's chest as it breathes. This makes UWB radar an attractive choice for ROA/CPD. Another incentive for automakers to use UWB for ROA/CPD is that the vehicle's existing UWB ranging solution can be extended to include the UWB radar capabilities used by ROA/CPD systems. This makes it possible to use one solution combining UWB ranging and radar for multiple purposes. UWB radar has other applications in vehicles, too. For example, UWB radar can be part of seatbelt reminder systems, which combine the status of the seatbelt with the occupancy status of the seat. If the system detects a person in the seat without the seatbelt being engaged, the car can issue an increasingly persistent alarm until the seatbelt is deployed.
• Smart Home and Smart Building: UWB-enabled smartphones and remote controls can support point-to-control and "find my" features. UWB-enabled speakers can optimize sound rendering based on room occupancy and the positioning (and movement) of listeners. Living spaces can adjust settings automatically, depending on who is where, optimizing the operation and energy efficiency of heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems, lighting networks and entertainment systems. Secure authentication, point-to-control, secure access, obstruction sensing, presence detection, mapping, and other features increase automation and make home appliances safer, more efficient and more intuitive to use.
• Industrial IoT: The UWB use cases in production facilities and other industrial environments extend across tracking resources, such as work-in-process (WIP) goods, tools and heavy equipment, so as to improve production efficiency. More recently, UWB is being used to manage access control for employees, locate workers in an emergency or support geofencing capabilities that ensure only authorized personnel are in restricted areas. Geofencing can also be used with autonomous vehicles to avoid entry into hazardous environments. Similarly, a robot equipped with a UWB device can continuously sense for the presence of people or moving objects and automatically stop operation if a target is detected in the defined zone. Combining UWB with cameras, for computer vision, expand the options for autonomy, energy saving and safety.

Start with NXP

Since UWB is such a versatile technology, with potential relevance to such a wide range of use cases, applications and markets, it can be hard to know where to start. That's where we can help.

NXP helped pioneer the use of UWB for ranging and radar, and offers one of the broadest portfolios of UWB solutions in the industry. Our UWB Trimension® products for mobile, industrial, IoT and automotive support ranging and radar applications and are designed for interoperability. Our deep involvement with cutting-edge applications and industry groups, including FiRa, the CCC, and CSA, gives us an advantage when it comes to defining, developing and deploying UWB-enabled devices. Also, because we have deep expertise in all the relevant verticals and offer full systems solutions, our customers benefit from our approach to integration and save on R&D resources.

Learn more about Trimension UWB, the technology's ability to transform everyday experiences and NXP's dedication to customer enablement.

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