Wi-fi know-how, similar to 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 standards established by organizations together with the IEEE Standards Association.
Within the United States, the Federal Communications Commission oversees laws for all wi-fi gadgets, 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 gadgets licensed, IEEE Member Steve Liu based RF Safety Laboratory in 2023. The startup, based mostly in Catonsville, Md., makes a speciality of particular absorption charge (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 shoppers, who’re based mostly in Japan, South Korea, and the USA, need to promote their merchandise in Canada and the USA, which have the strictest, most troublesome laws to navigate.
The lab makes a speciality of guaranteeing wi-fi gadgets are certifiably protected, offering customers with peace of thoughts.
“Not everybody is aware of SAR ranges are publicly obtainable 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 nations don’t understand 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 customers, 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 requirements 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 very superior expertise to be engaged with such giant corporations and an enormous 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 Aspect, a London-based supplier of critical-materials testing, product qualification testing, inspection, and certification companies. New bosses meant a brand new tradition and a unique 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 start out his personal firm, utilizing a few of his retirement financial savings. Six of his colleagues joined his enterprise.
The RF Security Laboratory crew 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 growth), 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 similar to 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 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 similar to RF Security Lab to determine what must be carried out to be licensed, Liu says.
Though the startup works with giant corporations 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 corporations have already got the expertise needed to repair points discovered throughout regulatory testing, so 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 conscious of the laws, so they arrive to us for assist.
“Many instances they simply should be educated on the laws and advised what paperwork they should provide to get their machine licensed,” he says, including that “there are circumstances 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 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 tasks 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 tip, used to look contained in the human physique. Though small, it’s related through a wire to a monitor, which the surgeon can view throughout the process. And operating 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 displays high-resolution photos on a monitor.
“They constructed this fascinating machine however didn’t know get it licensed and the impression that testing might 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 will have to have the ability to configure gadgets for sure testing functions, so the crew 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 numerous half producers, and regulatory businesses.
The method took a number of months to finish because of the product’s excessive frequency, which required preapproval steering with the FCC.
“It was a really enjoyable expertise and a rewarding challenge for the crew,” Liu says. “We had fun seeing that challenge by.”
RF Security Lab is increasing its attain and serving to corporations get their gadgets compliance-ready to be bought within the European Union. It is also engaged on getting merchandise to satisfy world cybersecurity laws.
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