February 16, 2021 Technical Requirements for Microwave Band Expansion for Outdoor Use of UWB Wireless System

The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) has today received a partial report from the Information and Communications Council (Chaired by UCHIYAMADA Takeshi, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Toyota Motor Corporation). This report was on technical requirements for microwave band expansion for the outdoor use of the ultra-wideband (UWB) wireless system as part of technical requirements for the UWB wireless system in response to Inquiry No. 2008 of September 30, 2002, of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC).

1. Background

The use of the microwave band UWB wireless system outdoors has already been legalized in the same frequency range as indoor use in other countries, including Europe and the United States. In Japan, however, it was limited to indoor use. Meanwhile, in recent years, wireless communications applications in IoT and sensor networks became more diversified. At the same time, the miniaturization of wireless devices made technological progress. As a result, there was an increasing need for the UWB wireless system for applications, such as high-precision positioning and object detection, to be installed in mobile devices and automobiles. In 2018, the Land Radiocommunication Subcommittee (hereafter referred to as the “Committee”) under the Information and Communications Council examined the technical conditions for enabling the outdoor use of the system. On May 20, 2019, institutional development was made to enable the outdoor use of the system in a frequency range from 7.587 GHz to 8.4 GHz.
Recently, there has been a growing demand for the outdoor use of the UWB wireless system and the need for applications in more advanced systems and wireless locating applications. Accordingly, studies have been conducted on the technical conditions necessary for expanding the frequency band to enable the outdoor use of the system and radio localization applications. In this connection, MIC received a partial report on the results of the studies from the Committee.

2. Outline of the partial report

The published material is in Japanese only.

3. Future plans

MIC plans to develop related regulations based on this partial report promptly.