Ultra wideband technology for wireless sensor networks

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have emerged as an important method for planetary surface exploration. To investigate the optimized wireless technology for WSNs, we summarized the key requirements of WSNs and justified ultra wideband (UWB) technology by comparing with other competitive wireless technologies. We also analyzed network topologies as well as physical and MAC layer designs of IEEE 802.15.4a standard, which adopted impulse radio UWB (IR-UWB) technology. Our analysis showed that IR-UWB-based 802.15.4a standard could enable robust communication, precise ranging, and heterogeneous networking for WSNs applications. The result of our present work implies that UWB-based WSNs can be applied to future planetary surface exploration.