Wi-fi know-how, resembling cellphones, fitness trackers, and medical devices, has turn out to be ubiquitous. Before a wireless device is manufactured and sold, its know-how is examined by compliance engineering laboratories to make sure it adheres to technical requirements established by organizations together with the IEEE Standards Association.
In america, the Federal Communications Commission oversees laws for all wi-fi units, whereas the Food and Drug Administration focuses on medical technology. The 2 organizations typically work collectively.
RF Security Laboratory
Founder:
Steve Liu
Based:
2023
Headquarters:
Catonsville, Md.
Staff:
8
To assist tech corporations get their wi-fi units licensed, IEEE Member Steve Liu based RF Safety Laboratory in 2023. The startup, primarily based in Catonsville, Md., focuses on particular absorption price (SAR) testing, nerve stimulation testing, and measuring power density ranges of charging docks, surgical tools, tablets, and different merchandise. SAR testing measures the quantity of RF power absorbed by the human physique from a wi-fi machine. Nerve stimulation and energy density checks measure the instantaneous results on an individual’s nervous system.
Liu says most of the lab’s purchasers, who’re primarily based in Japan, South Korea, and the United States, need to promote their merchandise in Canada and america, which have the strictest, most troublesome laws to navigate.
The lab focuses on making certain wi-fi units are certifiably secure, offering shoppers with peace of thoughts.
“Not everybody is aware of SAR ranges are publicly out there on the FCC web site,” Liu says.
Many product developers don’t notice that when integrating Wi-Fi or 5G into a tool, they should embrace shielding towards radiation of their designs to guard people from extra radiation, Liu says.
“Startups and new designers of wi-fi know-how in these nations don’t notice they’ll’t simply make a tool after which count on to have the ability to export it to North America,” he says. “Most of the time, these corporations solely discover this out after they’ve already begun to market their merchandise to shoppers, inflicting them to be held by customs and border safety.”
If a product is discovered to be noncompliant with laws, the corporate can face important fines and authorized actions, and the machine could be recalled.
From testing engineer to startup founder
Liu is not any stranger to technical standards and laws. After graduating with a bachelor’s diploma in biomedical and electrical engineering in 2000 from Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore, he joined PCTest Engineering Laboratory, in Columbia, Md. The corporate, now a part of Element, was created to offer regulatory and testing companies to the wi-fi, electronics, and telecommunications industries.
As a testing engineer, Liu assessed merchandise’ electromagnetic compatibility, RF publicity ranges, and hearing-aid compatibility. He additionally served as a member of the Telecommunication Certification Body, which assesses tools. He labored his approach up the profession ladder and, in 2018, was promoted to vp of engineering, overseeing world compliance.
“Being an IEEE member has positively paid off for me.”
“I’ve licensed greater than 4,000 merchandise for corporations together with Apple, Motorola, Samsung, Sony, and Rivian,” Liu says. “It was a extremely superior expertise to be engaged with such giant corporations and an unlimited portfolio of merchandise, though we have been a small-scale operation simply doing regulatory electromagnetic compatibility and RF safety-type testing.”
In 2020 the corporate was acquired by Factor, a London-based supplier of critical-materials testing, product qualification testing, inspection, and certification companies. New bosses meant a brand new tradition and a special approach of working.
“Though the brand new administration was supportive and it was a very good expertise, I felt that I couldn’t spend the time and power I wished to on fixing issues, serving to clients, or mentoring my staff,” Liu says. After 23 years, he left in 2023 to start out his personal firm, utilizing a few of his retirement financial savings. Six of his colleagues joined his enterprise.
The RF Security Laboratory group in 2023 [from left]: Mark Biros (head of operations), Phuong Nguyen (technical supervisor), Kaitlin O’Keefe (head of engineering), Steve Liu (president), former worker, Burcu Derkunt (head of enterprise improvement), and Bich Nguyen (director of engineering).
RF Security Laboratory
How wi-fi tech will get assessed
To get licensed, new wi-fi merchandise are examined towards established standards resembling IEEE 802.11 to make sure they meet necessities for efficiency and security. When an organization develops a tool, it sends the know-how to an authorized test lab, the place technicians decide if the product is passable.
If the machine is licensed, the corporate can transfer ahead with manufacturing and distribution. If it doesn’t go muster, the corporate can cease engaged on it or repair the issue and resubmit the machine for certification.
When merchandise fail testing, corporations retain organizations resembling RF Security Lab to determine what must be accomplished to be licensed, Liu says.
Though the startup works with giant corporations together with Belkin, Google, and Sony, he says, most of its purchasers are new designers and small companies.
“A number of giant, tier-one corporations have already got the expertise vital to repair points discovered throughout regulatory testing, so that they don’t encounter severe roadblocks until they’re growing a novel know-how,” he says. “However we’re seeing that a variety of new designers usually are not conscious of the laws, so they arrive to us for assist.
“Many occasions they only have to be educated on the laws and instructed what paperwork they should provide to get their machine licensed,” he says, including that “there are instances the place we have to run our personal checks and assessments to find out how the product can adjust to laws.”
After the lab evaluates the product, it compiles a report with its findings together with suggestions on the best way to treatment any failures. Corrective measures can embrace altering energy ranges, redesigning an antenna, and updating software parameters to affect an antenna’s habits.
Liu says that one in all his most difficult tasks was a wi-fi endoscope developed by a bunch of medical doctors from Illinois. An endoscope is a skinny, versatile instrument with a digicam on the top, used to look contained in the human physique. Though small, it’s related through a wire to a monitor, which the surgeon can view in the course of the process. And operating rooms have quite a few different machines with wires along with endoscopes.
The Illinois medical doctors wished to lower the variety of wires in working rooms, so that they developed a wi-fi endoscope that makes use of a high-frequency 60-gigahertz RF transmitter, which displays high-resolution photographs on a monitor.
“They constructed this attention-grabbing machine however didn’t know the best way to get it licensed and the affect that testing may have on the ultimate design,” Liu says.
“Like many corporations, the designers have been resourceful and bought the transmitter components at a low value from a producer abroad,” he says. “For a regulatory certification, you have got to have the ability to configure units for sure testing functions, so the group and I needed to do a deep dive to seek out directions on how the transmitter labored and the way it was made.” He says it was notably difficult as a result of the transmitter wasn’t the one off-the-shelf half the designers used.
Getting the machine prepared for certification required a variety of collaboration among the many designers, the various half producers, and regulatory companies.
The method took a number of months to finish as a result of product’s excessive frequency, which required preapproval steering with the FCC.
“It was a really enjoyable expertise and a rewarding mission for the group,” Liu says. “We had fun seeing that mission by means of.”
RF Security Lab is increasing its attain and serving to corporations get their units compliance-ready to be offered within the European Union. It is also engaged on getting merchandise to satisfy world cybersecurity laws.
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