High-Density and De-Densified Smart Campus Communications

7UWB‐Based De‐densification of Spaces and Work Environments

This chapter focuses on one of the various technical approaches that can be used for Office Social Distancing (OSD) and Office Dynamic Cluster Monitoring and Analysis (ODCMA): Ultra‐Wideband (UWB) Smart Tags. In general, UWB technology provides relatively high throughput at short distances by utilizing low‐power pulse transmission as a coexisting radio service in the C/X‐band portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. A key feature is that UWB allows for precise timing resolution in defined topological zones (in the range of 10 000 square feet), thus making this technology a good candidate for Indoor Positioning Systems (IPSs); with UWB, one is capable of localizing a node with a high certainty of 3–10 cm. UWB has several unique characteristics that make it suitable for many emerging and evolving Internet of Things (IoT) applications in the Wireless Personal Area Network (WPAN) arena, in addition to possible utilization as an IPS in the OSD/ODCMA context for presence monitoring and tracking of employees.

UWB‐based communication provides near‐gigabit per second data rate connectivity in conjunction with immunity from noise and multipath interference while also enjoying low power consumption. The ongoing technical efforts toward the development of simple and inexpensive transceivers make this technology a good choice for many short‐range IoT applications, including OSD/ODCMA applications, Body Area Networks applications, ...