UL Lab Tests the Limits—Disney Style

UL's Test the Limits Lab interactive marquee marks the entrance to the 3000-sq-ft exhibit.

In true Disney fashion, Underwriters Laboratories brought to life an interactive lab at Epcot's Innoventions in Florida. Complete with smashing, crashing, and booming sound effects, the "Test the Limits Lab" features six hands-on activities where Epcot visitors can "test" products for safety.

The 3000-sq-ft lab focuses on educating the public about product safety and the rigors of testing. However, UL also sees the exhibit as beneficial to its customers, who yearly submit more than 18,000 different types of products for testing.

"Brand awareness is very important to our customers," said Donald A. Mader, UL's executive vice president for public safety and external affairs. "The value of what UL brings to the customer is the integrity of the UL mark."

Ted Hall, UL senior vice president and chief technical officer; Greg Hale, Disney vice president for safety, accessibility, and advanced technology; and Donald Mader, UL executive vice president for public safety and external affairs, take in the sights and sounds of the test lab.

UL worked closely with Disney for about a year to turn the concept into reality. To help them design the exhibits, Disney representatives toured UL's labs in Northbrook, IL, filming real engineers at work. Each test was designed to be as close as possible to the way the UL engineers do the test. Trained Innoventions cast members (Disney's term for staff) guide visitors through the resulting exhibits: Interactive Marquee, Shatter Lab, Slam Lab, Impact Lab, Drop Lab, and Torture Lab. The Interactive Marquee allows the visitor to use circuits, switches, levers, and buttons to find the correct combination to spark the marquee. The design of the exhibit encourages teamwork to solve the engineering puzzle. At the Shatter Lab, the object is to implode a television tube with a swinging missile. As the missile strikes the TV tube, a loud crash simulates UL's real implosion test (the Disney version doesn't break).

Crash! Children line up to have one more try at shattering the TV tube.

UL's other exhibits—the Slam, Drop, Impact, and Torture Labs—also provide plenty of hands-on (or feet-on) interaction. At the Slam Lab, visitors jump on pads that open and close a set of emergency doors. This lab replicates UL's fire door test, which requires doors to open and shut 100,000 times and still open with as little as 3 lb of pressure. The Drop Lab simulates UL's procedure for testing safes. At the Impact Lab, visitors experience a modified version of UL's test that is designed to ensure the strength of a firefighter's helmet. The real UL test ensures that a firefighter's helmet can withstand the impact of a 55-gal barrel.

UL has been testing common household products for more than 100 years. The Torture Lab gives visitors a chance to peer through a portal of a furnace putting products to the test. The furnace isn't real, of course, but with Disney Imagineering behind the design, it's hard to tell the difference.

John Drengenberg, UL's manager of consumer affairs, puts his years of electrical engineering to the test.

At a press conference February 28, both UL and Disney officials stressed that the two organizations share a commitment to public safety. "Disney and UL both have cultures that focus on safety," said Greg Hale, vice president for safety, accessibility, and advanced technology for Disney. Hale remarked on several areas in which the two companies overlap, including international compliance issues.

"UL is a welcome addition to Innoventions, and their commitment to public safety echoes our own," said Brad Rex, vice president of Epcot. Although designed to be amusing and tantalizing, the exhibit has a practical side. Its key objective is to bring education and awareness of product safety issues to the public. Mader notes that consumers often take product safety for granted. The exhibit, he says, shows consumers the physical science and engineering behind safety.

UL president and CEO Loring Knoblauch shows a visitor how to start the test at the Impact Lab.

In vibrant color, it emphasizes the thorough and stringent testing that products undergo before bearing the UL mark. "We want to give Innoventions guests the opportunity to come into our home, see what we do, and leave knowing that UL continues to work for a safer world," says Barbara Guthrie, UL's director of consumer affairs. "We have to anticipate the misuse of a product. It's a lot of fun to work in the UL labs," said Guthrie.

The original idea for the collaboration came from a UL employee. UL offers an "open line" program that encourages employees to share their suggestions with UL president and CEO Loring Knoblauch. Knoblauch says he liked the idea immediately, and the wheels were set in motion.

FCC Authorizes Ultra-Wideband Technology The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) now permits the marketing and operation of certain types of new products incorporating ultra-wideband (UWB) technology. According to FCC, UWB technology is promising for an array of new applications that could provide significant benefits for public safety, business, and consumers. Applications include radar imaging of objects buried underground or behind walls and short-range, high-speed data transmissions. Products include imaging systems, vehicular radar systems, and communications and measurement systems. UWB devices operate by employing very narrow or short-duration pulses that result in very large or wideband transmission bandwidths. With appropriate technical standards, UWB devices can operate using spectrum occupied by existing radio services without causing interference. Using existing spectrum enables scarce spectrum resources to be used more efficiently. FCC's order includes standards designed to ensure that existing and planned radio services, particularly safety services, are adequately protected. FCC says it will vigorously enforce the rules and act quickly on any reports of interference. The standards adopted represent a cautious first step with UWB technology. The standards are based largely on those that the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) says are necessary to protect against interference to vital federal government operations. Because there is little operational experience with the impact of UWB on other radio services, FCC chose to set conservative emissions limits. FCC will review the standards for UWB devices within the next six to 12 months. It will then issue a Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to explore more-flexible standards. It will also address the operation of additional types of UWB operations and technology.

Wi-Fi Alliance to Certify 802.11g Wireless LAN Products

The Wi-Fi Alliance plans to certify wireless LAN products as soon as IEEE approves the final standard. Certification will be based on the IEEE 802.11g amendment to the IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN standard.

"Wireless LAN product interoperability is fundamental to a good user experience," says Dennis Eaton, Wi-Fi Alliance chairman.

Eaton says keeping up with the technology requires working on new interoperability tests ahead of time. The alliance opted to develop the Wi-Fi certification program for IEEE 802.11g products even though the standard is not finalized. He adds that the need for a proven interoperability certification program is increasing.

"As more products include wireless LAN technology, users are often not able to choose which vendor's product is used in their laptop at work, at a favorite public access venue, or even in consumer electronics devices," Eaton says.

Although the alliance expects products based on the 802.11g draft amendment to be used in these and other applications, it will certify products only after the standard amendment is approved.

The IEEE 802.11g draft amendment currently includes both mandatory and optional components. The Wi-Fi Alliance will certify all mandatory features, including backward interoperability with Wi-Fi–certified 802.11b products. It will also certify simultaneous operation of IEEE 802.11b and 802.11g devices in a mixed network.

The alliance will certify optional elements of the standard such as support for the 54 Mb/sec data rate. Once certification begins, Wi-Fi–certified IEEE 802.11g products will be identified by a new element on the capabilities label. A new line indicating support for 54 Mb/sec in the 2.4 GHz band will be added to the label.

The alliance is currently developing an 802.11g interoperability test program based on the most recent draft of the standard. Actual certification testing will be based on the final standard. The certification program includes collaboration among alliance members to develop the expected behaviors for Wi-Fi–certified products. Confidential interoperability events were used to further develop the test program. These events included using products from several vendors to develop rigorous testing procedures.

This approach ensures the quality of the testing. It also ensures that the test program will be in place when IEEE approves the final 802.11g amendment. Similar interoperability events were also held as part of the certification development process for 802.11b, 802.11a, and Wi-Fi Protected Access.