RF Rescue Missions: How F3 can save your IoT project

During all product development projects in any discipline of engineering, the designers work from written requirements. But, they have to make some decisions, many of them seemingly small, and of little obvious consequence just based on experience and best practices. With RF systems, however, some of those small design decisions can paint you into a corner. Unless you’ve dealt with RF systems extensively there’s just no reason a competent electrical engineer with another speciality would know most of these things.

The problem, of course, is that you don’t KNOW that you’ve done this until you get the product physically built. If you do proper design verification testing (DVT) of your device and its radios at the prototype stage, you’ll find the problem right there and you could make changes to fix it. One of the main project decisions that burns people is that they don’t know how DVT is done for radios. Hint: it’s never done outside and never on a live network.

F3 helps customers deal with these issues all the time. Things most product developers do with radios and RF systems once every few years, we do every day. We can help you test the device, mitigate issues, ensure the performance your customers are expecting, and get you through certification so your product can get to market.

But, what if you didn’t call us? What if your product is “done” but it’s not meeting customer expectations or certification requirements?

What is a rescue mission?

Rescue missions can start in a lot of different places in a project. If customers engage with F3 early, we provide reviews, feedback, and support along the way and the project keeps moving because issues are found and handled in the normal design & test cycle. Sometimes clients don’t know what they don’t know, and get a considerable way through the project before they realize there is a problem. What we call “Rescue Missions” are where a product isn’t meeting requirements, normally radio related, but sometimes unintentional EMI/EMC RF emissions, and a customer asks us to fix it. The joke we all laugh about in the lab is, “We need you to fix our product, we need it for a trade show by the end of this week and oh, you can’t change anything.”

Regardless of the state of the project, we dig in and get whatever data is available, assess the known issues, determine if there are untested adjacent issues, and work with you to come up with mitigation options that meet your business needs. Often that’s a short term solution to buy you time and a long term solution to optimize cost, performance or other key business factors.

What are some examples of RF rescue missions?

Most of the time we’re helping with RF related hardware problems. Issues can occur in various aspects of a given design. Here are some other examples where rescue missions may be needed:

• Embedded firmware – There will be times when you need to work around the limitations of a device. We can work alongside your team to sort through issues or do the design and testing for you if resources are limited.
• Obsolete parts – Sometimes a device was designed a while ago and a part may no longer be available. We can often find an alternate part while avoiding the need to repeat certification testing. Sometimes some redesign is needed depending on what had to change.
• Build issues – Be it mass production fallout or prototype assembly problems, build issues are an expensive distraction nobody wants. We can help prevent them with design reviews and we can help with root cause analysis to find the smoking gun so you can get back to work.
• No RF engineers – Without experienced RF engineers it can be difficult, time-consuming, and costly to design a product that successfully passes certifications. Our team of experts have decades of experience so you can focus on what you do best.

How can I get help with my RF development issues?

Whether the issue is related to hardware or software, our experienced team can review your design and provide whatever level of support you need to achieve your goal. This can range from a few days of assistance and advice to a major project redesign to ongoing support and production support.

We can work within your budget to find solutions that ensure success. Even a small problem can become a showstopper, and the experts at F3 can help you avoid what you can, and fix what you didn’t.