Wi-fi expertise, resembling cellphones, health trackers, and medical gadgets, has change into ubiquitous. Earlier than a wi-fi gadget is manufactured and bought, its expertise is examined by compliance engineering laboratories to make sure it adheres to technical requirements established by organizations together with the IEEE Requirements Affiliation.
Within the United States, the Federal Communications Fee oversees rules for all wi-fi gadgets, whereas the Meals and Drug Administration focuses on medical expertise. The 2 organizations typically work collectively.
RF Security Laboratory
Founder:
Steve Liu
Based:
2023
Headquarters:
Catonsville, Md.
Workers:
8
To assist tech firms get their wi-fi gadgets licensed, IEEE Member Steve Liu based RF Security Laboratory in 2023. The startup, primarily based in Catonsville, Md., focuses on particular absorption price (SAR) testing, nerve stimulation testing, and measuring energy density ranges of charging docks, surgical instruments, tablets, and different merchandise. SAR testing measures the quantity of RF power absorbed by the human physique from a wi-fi gadget. Nerve stimulation and energy density exams measure the instantaneous results on an individual’s nervous system.
Liu says lots of the lab’s shoppers, who’re primarily based in Japan, South Korea, and america, wish to promote their merchandise in Canada and america, which have the strictest, most troublesome rules to navigate.
The lab focuses on guaranteeing wi-fi gadgets are certifiably secure, offering shoppers with peace of thoughts.
“Not everybody is aware of SAR ranges are publicly accessible on the FCC web site,” Liu says.
Many product builders don’t understand that when integrating Wi-Fi or 5G into a tool, they should embrace shielding in opposition to radiation of their designs to guard people from extra radiation, Liu says.
“Startups and new designers of wi-fi expertise in these nations don’t understand they’ll’t simply make a tool after which anticipate to have the ability to export it to North America,” he says. “As a rule, these firms 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 rules, the corporate can face vital fines and authorized actions, and the gadget may be recalled.
From testing engineer to startup founder
Liu is not any stranger to technical requirements and rules. After graduating with a bachelor’s diploma in biomedical and electrical engineering in 2000 from Johns Hopkins College, in Baltimore, he joined PCTest Engineering Laboratory, in Columbia, Md. The corporate, now a part of Component, was created to supply regulatory and testing providers 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 Physique, 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 undoubtedly paid off for me.”
“I’ve licensed greater than 4,000 merchandise for firms together with Apple, Motorola, Samsung, Sony, and Rivian,” Liu says. “It was a very superior expertise to be engaged with such giant firms and an unlimited portfolio of merchandise, though we had been a small-scale operation simply doing regulatory electromagnetic compatibility and RF safety-type testing.”
In 2020 the corporate was acquired by Component, a London-based supplier of critical-materials testing, product qualification testing, inspection, and certification providers. 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 prospects, or mentoring my staff,” Liu says. After 23 years, he left in 2023 to begin his personal firm, utilizing a few of his retirement financial savings. Six of his colleagues joined his enterprise.
The RF Security Laboratory workforce 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 in opposition to established requirements resembling IEEE 802.11 to make sure they meet necessities for efficiency and safety. When an organization develops a tool, it sends the expertise to an approved check lab, the place technicians decide if the product is passable.
If the gadget is licensed, the corporate can transfer ahead with manufacturing and distribution. If it doesn’t move muster, the corporate can cease engaged on it or repair the issue and resubmit the gadget for certification.
When merchandise fail testing, firms retain organizations resembling RF Security Lab to determine what needs to be achieved to be licensed, Liu says.
Though the startup works with giant firms together with Belkin, Google, and Sony, he says, most of its shoppers are new designers and small companies.
“Quite a lot of giant, tier-one firms have already got the expertise crucial to repair points discovered throughout regulatory testing, so that they don’t encounter severe roadblocks until they’re growing a novel expertise,” he says. “However we’re seeing that a number of new designers are usually not conscious of the rules, so they arrive to us for assist.
“Many occasions they simply must be educated on the rules and instructed what paperwork they should provide to get their gadget licensed,” he says, including that “there are circumstances the place we have to run our personal exams and assessments to find out how the product can adjust to rules.”
After the lab evaluates the product, it compiles a report with its findings together with suggestions on easy methods to treatment any failures. Corrective measures can embrace altering energy ranges, redesigning an antenna, and updating software program parameters to affect an antenna’s habits.
Liu says that considered one of his most difficult initiatives was a wi-fi endoscope developed by a gaggle of docs from Illinois. An endoscope is a skinny, versatile instrument with a digital camera on the top, used to look contained in the human physique. Though small, it’s linked through a wire to a monitor, which the surgeon can view throughout the process. And working rooms have quite a few different machines with wires along with endoscopes.
The Illinois docs 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 shows high-resolution photos on a monitor.
“They constructed this fascinating gadget however didn’t know easy methods to get it licensed and the influence that testing may have on the ultimate design,” Liu says.
“Like many firms, the designers had been resourceful and bought the transmitter components at a low price from a producer abroad,” he says. “For a regulatory certification, you may have to have the ability to configure gadgets for sure testing functions, so the workforce 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 gadget prepared for certification required a number of collaboration among the many designers, the numerous 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 steerage with the FCC.
“It was a really enjoyable expertise and a rewarding venture for the workforce,” Liu says. “We had fun seeing that venture via.”
RF Security Lab is increasing its attain and serving to firms get their gadgets compliance-ready to be bought within the European Union. It is also engaged on getting merchandise to fulfill world cybersecurity rules.
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