Nexus - 0604 - New Times Magazine-pages

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NEWSCIENCENEWSCIENCENEWSCIENCE Domain because the radar technology accurate to within less than an inch. That could pinpoint victims beneath an earth- would allow for what Petroff calls "preci- quake's rubble. sion farming". Put pulse technology on a ¢ The Marines have been looking at _ tractor, and the vehicle could plough a field Time Domain prototypes because they'd _ by itself. Or the positioning aspects might like a walkie-talkie that's not only unde- allow for the creation of a self-guided tectable but can tell a Marine the location —_ bricklaying machine. of all the other members of his unit. Time Domain technology could be per- * The Immigration and Naturalization fect for the blossoming industry of home Service is doing a pilot project with Time computer networking. The single biggest Domain. It's interested in ways that the obstacle to home networking is the wiring. technology could be used along the border. Who wants to string another set of wires to Put a wireless, low-power camera in acac- every computer, printer, TV and other tus, and it could transmit video back to INS device around the house? With pulse tech- agents. No need to string telltale wires nology, you might be able to put a box on across the desert! the side of the house that would be power- A few pulse technology products are ful enough to transmit TV, the Internet and ready for a broader market, pending FCC _ phone calls to any device inside. approval. Mass-market products are still years away. Cellphones, Petroff predicts, Forres is 48, and married with two are a decade off. grown children. He's had a lab since he A couple of small companies are making was seven. His father was in the military pulse radar devices for measuring liquid in and they moved frequently; his labs went steel storage tanks. A handful of research with the family. At 13, he was introduced labs, such as the UltRa Lab at the to amateur radio by a neighbour at University of Southern California, are McChord Air Force Base in Tacoma, experimenting with pulses. Washington, and was fascinated. He went "There are still three to four iterations of to the University of Arkansas in design that have to go on before we really Fayetteville, Arkansas, where a favourite know if it all looks good," says Robert _ professor, Leonard Forbes, told the class Scholtz of UltRa Lab. "Still, no one has — one day of a theory of pulsed communica- disproved its potential.” tion. Research on the theory had been Recent developments are giving the going on for years. But, Forbes said, technology a head of steam. pulses could never be transmitted. Until about a year ago, Fullerton's inven- "I couldn't think of a reason it wouldn't tion was, as he says, "a science project". It | work," Fullerton says. worked only in theory or in awkward and costly lab experiments. Then IBM came up with a new way to make a chip using the material silicon germanium. That chip turned out to be perfect for measuring time to the picosecond and controlling release of the pulses, at low cost. Working with IBM's Ron Soicher, Time Domain became a test project for the chip. "It's been a perfect match," says Alan Petroff, brother of Ralph and head of Time Domain's engineering work. "We wouldn't be doing this now if not for that." Another development has to do with money, and lots of it. In 1995, Time Domain was an 11-person Huntsville com- pany that struggled to make payroll. Since then, the Petroff family, who had previous- ly built a multinational environmental engi- neering company, invested US$3 million and took over management. Alan Petroff has some intriguing ideas. For instance, the technology's ability to measure a position is so good, it can be accurate to within less than an inch. That would allow for what Petroff calls "preci- sion farming". Put pulse technology ona tractor, and the vehicle could plough a field by itself. Or the positioning aspects might allow for the creation of a self-guided bricklaying machine. Time Domain technology could be per- fect for the blossoming industry of home computer networking. The single biggest obstacle to home networking is the wiring. Who wants to string another set of wires to every computer, printer, TV and other device around the house? With pulse tech- nology, you might be able to put a box on the side of the house that would be power- ful enough to transmit TV, the Internet and phone calls to any device inside. And if it worked, its potential would be awesome, he realised. He kept experi- menting in his home lab until one day he used pulses to transmit music (a tape of the album Chicago III) from his workbench to a hand-held receiver in his yard. "When it worked, I got kind of a spooky feeling," he says. He got jobs with big companies—Texas Instruments, ITT, CSC—and started a small, not-very-successful one. He kept tinkering. CSC brought him to Huntsville where he looked up a patent attorney and won his first patent. He now has 10 US patents for pulse technology and 32 abroad. Lanky and bearded, Fullerton comes across as painfully shy, but underneath he is steely and wily. He met Alan Petroff in the 1980s. Peter Petroff (Alan's father) had come from Bulgaria to work with Huntsville's rocket scientists who were building the US space program in the 960s. He then invented the digital watch, ounding Pulsar in 1969, and later built ADS Environmental Services with his three sons, Ralph, Alan and Mark. By 995, Fullerton lured in Alan Petroff who took a $25,000 salary just to get in. A year ater, the rest of the Petroffs joined him. "We had all planned to retire," says Ralph Petroff, now 44. The Petroffs brought money and man- agement. Without them, Fullerton's inven- tion might have died. oo (Source: Sightings press release, 1] April 1999, ) a V me SSS - JUNE — JULY 1999 NEXUS - 53