Wireless technology, equivalent to cellphones, fitness trackers, and medical devices, has change into 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 standards established by organizations together with the IEEE Standards Association.
Within the United States, the Federal Communications Commission oversees regulations for all wireless devices, whereas the Food and Drug Administration focuses on medical technology. The 2 organizations usually work collectively.
RF Security Laboratory
Founder:
Steve Liu
Based:
2023
Headquarters:
Catonsville, Md.
Workers:
8
To assist tech companies get their wi-fi devices licensed, IEEE Member Steve Liu based RF Safety Laboratory in 2023. The startup, based mostly in Catonsville, Md., makes a speciality of 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 energy absorbed by the human physique from a wi-fi device. Nerve stimulation and power density checks measure the instantaneous results on an individual’s nervous system.
Liu says most of the lab’s shoppers, who’re based mostly in Japan, South Korea, and america, need to promote their merchandise in Canada and america, which have the strictest, most troublesome rules to navigate.
The lab makes a speciality of guaranteeing wi-fi units are certifiably protected, offering shoppers with peace of mind.
“Not everybody is aware of SAR ranges are publicly accessible on the FCC web site,” Liu says.
Many product developers 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 know-how in these international locations don’t understand they will’t simply make a tool after which anticipate to have the ability to export it to North America,” he says. “As a rule, 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 rules, the corporate can face vital fines and legal actions, and the machine will be recalled.
From testing engineer to startup founder
Liu is not any stranger to technical standards and rules. After graduating with a bachelor’s degree 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 supply regulatory and testing services to the wi-fi, electronics, and telecommunications industries.
As a testing engineer, Liu assessed merchandise’ electromagnetic compatibility, RF exposure ranges, and hearing-aid compatibility. He additionally served as a member of the Telecommunication Certification Body, which assesses gear. He labored his approach up the career ladder and, in 2018, was promoted to vice president 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 very superior expertise to be engaged with such massive 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 Component, a London-based supplier of critical-materials testing, product qualification testing, inspection, and certification providers. New bosses meant a brand new culture and a unique approach of working.
“Though the brand new management was supportive and it was expertise, I felt that I couldn’t spend the time and vitality I needed to on fixing issues, serving to prospects, or mentoring my workers,” 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 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 equivalent to IEEE 802.11 to make sure they meet necessities for performance 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 move 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 equivalent to RF Safety Lab to figure out what needs to be executed to be licensed, Liu says.
Though the startup works with massive corporations together with Belkin, Google, and Sony, he says, most of its shoppers are new designers and small companies.
“Plenty of massive, tier-one corporations have already got the expertise needed to repair points discovered throughout regulatory testing, in order that they don’t encounter critical roadblocks except they’re growing a novel know-how,” he says. “However we’re seeing that a variety of new designers will not be aware of the rules, so they arrive to us for assist.
“Many occasions they only have to be educated on the rules and informed 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 rules.”
After the lab evaluates the product, it compiles a report with its findings together with suggestions on learn how to treatment any failures. Corrective measures can embrace altering energy ranges, redesigning an antenna, and updating software parameters to affect an antenna’s behavior.
Liu says that one among his most difficult projects was a wi-fi endoscope developed by a bunch of medical doctors from Illinois. An endoscope is a skinny, flexible instrument with a camera on the tip, used to look contained in the human physique. Though small, it’s related via 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 needed to lower the variety of wires in working rooms, in order that they developed a wi-fi endoscope that makes use of a high-frequency 60-gigahertz RF transmitter, which displays high-resolution pictures on a monitor.
“They constructed this fascinating machine however didn’t know learn how 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 price from a producer abroad,” he says. “For a regulatory certification, you might have to have the ability to configure units 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 machine prepared for certification required a variety of collaboration among the many designers, the various half producers, and regulatory businesses.
The method took a number of months to finish because of the product’s high frequency, which required preapproval steerage with the FCC.
“It was a really enjoyable expertise and a rewarding undertaking for the workforce,” Liu says. “We had fun seeing that undertaking via.”
RF Security Lab is increasing its attain and serving to corporations get their units compliance-ready to be bought within the European Union. It is also engaged on getting merchandise to satisfy world cybersecurity rules.
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