Fake heads and robot probes: testing smartphones prior to launch - jacobswility87

Connected the shelves of a laboratory near San Francisco sit out tanks and tanks of mysterious-looking liquids. Labels nam some Eastern Samoa simulations of human heads, while others colligate to muscles.

It sounds equivalent the ghoulish headquarters of a mad scientist, only it isn't. It's the Silicon Valley offices of UL, a product testing organization previously known American Samoa Underwriters Laboratory, and these liquids play an eminent part in smartphone safety.

You might not recognise UL, but you can probably find its logo on a act of products around your plate.

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2 UL logos are seen along a computer power furnish. The company tests products to assure they meet safety requirements.

Manufacturers contract with the company to run tests and ensure products meet refuge and regulatory guidelines. This testing ground is wont to test for magnetic attraction radiation coming from phones.

Electromagnetic radiation is emitted by all electronic devices. You'll sometimes know IT as interference on a radio or television, and in the context of smartphones, there are legal limits on how much RF (radio frequence) radiation they can emit. The standard is how much a anatomy toilet safely sop up.

That standard is based along the specific absorption rate, or SAR, and that's where the liquids interject.

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Containers of liquid designed to simulate the hominid dead body pose on shelves at UL in Fremont, Golden State, on April 13, 2017.

"The liquid is designed to emulate the electric properties of the human body," said Dave Weaver, program manager of the SAR laboratory. There are different liquids that simulate tissues in muscles and the head.

His lab has 4 examination Stations that each seat to a higher place a different mold, some to simulate the head and others to assume the trunk. The liquids are poured into their individual molds and a cellular phone is placed underneath, and with a whir of electric motors, robotic arms bound into action.

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A golem controlled measuring dig into sits in a value-added tax of liquid as part of cellular telephone RF examination at UL in Fremont, California, on April 13, 2017.

At the end of each arm is a sensitive probe that measures the strength of the Releasing hormone field at its tip.

"The probe is essentially a very belittled antenna," Weaver said. "It dips into the liquid and measures the electric field intensity in the liquid, and from on that point we can calculate the dose, how so much zip is absorbed by the user."

By using a liquid, the probe can represent placed at varying distances from the cellphone under test so the flying field can comprise determined penny-pinching the skin and deeper interior the body.

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A measure probe sits in a vat of liquid as part of cellular telephone Unq testing at UL in John C. Fremont, California, connected April 13, 2017.

The science lab tests a range of products, including smartphones, laptops and wearable devices.

"A watch, for instance, could take maybe a 24-hour interval, because there's not more in it," same Weaver finch. "A complex cellphone could be several weeks, exploitation multiple systems at a time."

Whereas 15 years ago, a cellphone connected to just deuce or three frequency bands, today a phone like the iPhone 7 connects to to a higher degree 20 LTE bands, a handful of bands for older cellular technologies, two Wi-Fi bands and Bluetooth, thusly the testing takes a long time.

To generate these signals, a communication theory tester sits on a nearby shelf. It can imitate all wireless network the phone is likely to come into contact with and prompt the sound to generate signals of different strengths.

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A piece of measuring equipment used as part of cellphone Unnilquadium testing at UL in Fremont, Calif., on April 13, 2017.

The effect of whol this work, hopefully, is an approval from UL that confirms the product is within SAR guidelines. The results are usually given on the safety and regulatory pages of manuals for the products — the bits that most nonentity reads. Orchard apple tree has them sorted on a site.

The SAR limits are kick in the U.S. by the Fed Communication theory Commission and in Europe by European Committee for Electrotechnical Calibration (CENELEC).

This isn't the simply testing a phone must undergo before IT hits the shelves. It needs to be checked to ensure it's compatible with various cellular technologies and doesn't cause interference to other users. Cancellate carriers will often also put handsets through weeks of testing to make a point they work as advertised.

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/406522/fake-heads-and-robot-probes-testing-smartphones-prior-to-launch.html

Posted by: jacobswility87.blogspot.com

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