Ultra-wideband is now part of everyone's life

Editorial

A prediction come true

Ten years ago, Ultra-wideband (UWB) was a niche technology for a niche application. This was about the time that the foundations of Pozyx were made, at the University of Ghent with a research unit on accurate indoor positioning. Five years later, in 2015, Pozyx was founded with the firm belief that ultra-wideband had the potential to challenge GPS as the best-known location technology of the future. At that time, we made a prediction that UWB would be in the smartphone in the next five years. That prediction came true in 2019.

An emerging technology

A testament to the emergence of UWB is the adoption of the technology by both the smartphone and the automotive industry. In 2019, UWB was incorporated in the Apple iPhones and more smartphone manufacturers are known to follow. In automotive, UWB has been identified by the car connectivity consortium made up of all major brands as the next-generation technology for secure keyless car entry, together with several other in-car applications. These events are comparable to the events in early 2000 when Bluetooth was being adopted as a standard for short-range wireless communication and was included in phones. Today, 920 million Bluetooth chips are sold annually. A similar future can be true for UWB.

These advancements haven’t gone unnoticed in the semiconductor industry as is evidenced by the recent acquisition of Decawave by Qorvo for an estimated $350 million. Decawave was an Irish startup that pioneered with its UWB chip-release to the broad market in 2014. Qorvo, a pure chip player, will now reinforce the production while ensuring stability and continuity for its customers. Qorvo is not alone in the UWB space, with NXP entering the UWB-chip market together with a handful of small semiconductor startups which will further drive new innovations in the technology.

The future of Pozyx

In contrast to the consumer applications in the mobile and automotive industry, Pozyx is focusing on the industrial and professional market for ultra-wideband positioning. With our UWB positioning platform built upon the Decawave UWB chip technology, we can enable a large number of applications in these domains. To assist industries in shifting to this new paradigm, we will provide a series of whitepapers called "re:Define": An exploration of how all sectors can redefine themselves through UWB Indoor Positioning.

Our goals for this year are to diversify our tag portfolio and come out with new industrialized versions of both tags and anchors for large-scale deployments. Starting with the release of our newest industrial anchor in Q2. In terms of software, we are shifting to quarterly releases with new features and improvements. Finally, we want to strengthen our international partner network.

To achieve our goals we are further expanding the team, and reinforcing our management structure. At the beginning of the year I have moved from CTO to CEO, a statement that, as a technological company, R&D is significant and that we will work hard to remain the industry-leading company in indoor positioning. Two new senior hires will strengthen the management as CTO (Bert Paquet) and CCO (Yves Ghys). Vadim Vermeiren becomes the new COO.

We are firmly convinced that UWB will become part of everyone's life in the future, and Pozyx will be ready for that!

Samuel, Co-Founder, and CEO of Pozyx

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