Renesas Electronics, a premier supplier of advanced semiconductor solutions, and French engineering consultancy firm Altran on Thursday announced that they have co-developed a wearable solution for social distancing based on Ultra-Wideband (UWB) technology.
Earlier this year, Renesas announced it had licensed UWB technology from 3db Access AG, a fabless semiconductor company specializing in secure UWB low power chips to augment Renesas microcontrollers (MCUs).
The platform’s form factor, a wristwatch, combines the Renesas Synergy S128 MCU featuring HMI capacitive touch with licensed secure ranging UWB technology. Unlike other social distancing wearables based on technologies such as Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), Renesas’ UWB chipset with Low Rate Pulse (LRP) can operate on 10X lower power consumptionthan competing UWB chips and measure distances with an accuracy of 10cm or less – the precision necessary for social distancing applications. The wristwatch’s safe distance is user-configurable; the wearer is alerted by LEDs and haptic feedback when a second device is detected within this range. Renesas will begin sampling the UWB chipset during the second half of 2021.
As co-developer and system integrator, Altran will leverage the UWB-based platform along with other internal assets to develop additional wearable solutions for social distancing as well as related location-based applications for clients across a broad range of markets. The social distancing wristwatch will be showcased in Altran’s innovation lab.
Roger Wendelken, SVP, Head of MCU Business, IoT and Infrastructure Business Unit at Renesas
Renesas plans to expand to more use cases in the future such as access control, asset tracking and geofencing.
Scott Houghton, President of Altran’s Semiconductor & Electronics, Industrial & Consumer business
This has been a unique and rewarding project, collaborating with Renesas to bring the first LRP UWB-based social distancing wristwatch to market.
