Product certification or product qualification is the process of certifying that am electronic product has passed performance tests and quality assurance tests and meets qualification criteria stipulated in contracts, regulations, and specifications.
Right from the outset, products must comply with certain regulations that determine what substances and materials they can be made of and in what concentrations, and even where and how the products can be manufactured.
These regulations are in place to protect the public and the environment from toxic substances, to work towards the elimination of human rights violations in factories and mines, and to reduce violence in third-world countries. The general public may not realize just how hard companies work to make sure their products are safe and maintain an ethical supply chain, nor do some professionals fully grasp how comprehensive these regulations actually are.
The crop squad drone is no exception. The drone has to pass the general electronic device regulations and additional drone-specific regulations and certifications.
In fact, there are so many regulations that companies hire entire teams to work behind the scenes to make sure the final products are compliant.
Each country has its own accreditation bodies/standards organizations and certification marking. The certification specification, test methods, and frequency of testing are published by the standards organization.
There are many third-party certification centers or labs, which are usually accredited by the product certification bodies. Product manufacturers can choose any of these centers to get certification for their products.
Regulatory Certification
The electronics industry has experienced a continuous pressure in product regulatory compliance mainly caused by the increase in the number of regulations that product designers and manufacturers need to abide by in order to put products into the marketplace.
These certifications qualify the products and their characteristics and are aimed at reducing the impact to health, minimizing security threats, and being respectful to the environment. The European Union has nearly 500 active laws in 2016 (such as RoHS, REACH, and WEEE) and tops the list of market regions with the most regulations issued per annum. The US follows with almost 200 (the FDA among others), and Asia and Central and South America have nearly 150 active laws each in 2016. In recent years, countries in Central and South America and Asia have become more concerned with the environmental impact of electronic products; thus they also have drafted and passed more environmental bills.
All types of electronic devices, including drones, must comply the following list of standards to get the marking or certification.
Safety
The board, accessories, and the system (including power supply, chassis, and all contents) should comply and to be tested to all the applicable safety standards, such as IEC for safety. Testing must be performed at accredited labs. Passing test reports must be provided to a product regulatory engineer for review and approval.
A drone is an electromechanical device, and all of the below mentioned tests are mandatory before launching one into the market.
Electrical
Electrical safety testing is essential to ensure safe operating standards for any product that uses electricity.
To get the approval from different certifying agencies for respective countries, the product must pass safety tests such as the high voltage test, insulation resistance test, ground bond and ground continuity test, and leakage current test. More details of these tests are described in IEC 60335, IEC 61010, and many other national and international standards documents.
Drones run on electricity so it’s very important for a drone to pass the electrical safety test.
Functional
Functional safety is essential to ensure the system is free of risk of physical injury or of damage to the health of people either directly or indirectly.
Unlike automotive, aerospace, and medical systems, there is no stringent functional safety standard for drones as of today. As the market for commercial drones matures, more stringent certification requirements are expected to be established.
Drones are more common for commercial and industrial applications. The increase in drone usage is raising safety concerns and this will make the standards more stringent in future.
More details are available in IEC 61508, which is the generic functional standard for electrical and electronic systems.
Mechanical
It is essential to check the fast-moving blades or propellers as well as the conditions under which a mechanical failure of the drones could pose a potential safety risk to users. Also, drones are checked to make sure there are no sharp edges to cause injuries while handling or non-operation of drone systems.
All of the external parts of a drone are continuously moving. Some drones may have sharp blades used as propellers, so mechanical safety is very important.
Chemical
Chemical safety certification is to make sure users are not exposed to life-threatening chemicals used in the system. Chemicals are found everywhere; whether they are naturally present in raw materials or added to create specific characteristics, they have become a heavily regulated area. All the chemicals should be assessed and tested to protect users from unnecessary risks.
Different parts of the drone use different materials: metal, plastic, or fiber, based on the requirements. The chemicals used for the mechanical parts and hardware are assessed carefully to make sure they are safe for the environment.
Battery
Millions of products, from laptops to cell phones to watches and more recently electric/hybrid vehicles and drones, contain batteries.
With the increase in applications for these batteries, it has become apparent that there are some safety issues that need to be addressed. Batteries can catch fire if they are damaged, exposed to high temperatures (exceeding 290°F), or packaged incorrectly. Lithium-ion battery thermal runaway reactions can exceed 1,220 °F, the melting point of aluminum, a key material in airplane construction. Lithium-metal battery fires are far hotter yet.
For example, a UPS cargo plane that was carrying thousands of lithium batteries crashed near Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, killing both pilots. The accident is still under investigation, but preliminary reports indicate that investigators have focused much of their attention on the batteries, which may have started a fire onboard the plane.
As a result, the organizations that now govern the transportation of lithium and lithium-ion batteries and cells include the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the International Air Transport Association (IATA), and the International Maritime Dangerous Goods Code (IMDG). In addition to international requirements, domestic regulations must be followed. The United States Department of Transportation (DOT) regulates the shipment of lithium and lithium-ion cells and batteries domestically under part 49 of the Code of Federal Regulations and UN/DOT under Section 38.3.
To properly address the safety issue and decrease the failure rate, new standards have been instituted. The required compliance to the new IEC 62133 standard means testing needs to be completed before the battery products can be shipped and domestic shipments must be tested in accordance with UN 38.3.
This standard specifies requirements and tests for the safe operation of portable, sealed secondary cells and batteries. Cells and batteries need to be designed and constructed so that they are safe under conditions of both intended use and reasonably foreseeable misuse.
Emission
Emission testing is the part of Electromagnetic Compatibly (EMC) regulation on any electronic devices including drones. The goal of emission testing is to protect the radio spectrum to enable radio services to operate and to ensure that electrical interference is minimized.
Most EMC standards throughout the world are based on a CISPR standard (the International Special Committee on Radio Interference). As indicated in the name, CISPR is a special committee of the IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission) whose remit is to prepare and issue standards for various product types such that radio services are protected.
All EMC standards find their origins in CISPR standards irrespective of their actual name. FCC Parts 15 and 18 (USA), for example, are derived from CISPR 16, 11, and 22.
Radiated
Radiation testing involves measuring the electromagnetic field strength of the emissions that are unintentionally generated by the electronic product or drones. Emissions are inherent to the switching voltages and currents within any digital circuit. The intent of radiation testing is to ensure that radiation levels are within specified acceptable levels.
Conducted
Conducted emissions are internal electromagnetic emissions propagated along a power or signal conductor, creating noise. The noise is subsequently transferred to the equipment. This test method is used to measure conducted emissions on power leads and antenna terminals.
Immunity
Immunity testing is just the application of some electromagnetic phenomena to the drone product. It is the opposite of emissions testing. Instead of measuring what’s coming from your product, immunity testing involves subjecting your product to radio waves.
Radiated
Radiated field susceptibility testing typically involves a high-powered source of RF or EM pulse energy and a radiating antenna to direct the energy at the potential victim or device under test (the drone). This checks the capability and operation of the drone even in the presence of an external interference signal propagated via free space.
Conducted
This method is used to determine whether equipment is susceptible to external electromagnetic energy injected on its power leads, antenna ports, and interconnecting cables. Conducted voltage and current susceptibility testing typically involve a high-powered signal or pulse generator and a current clamp or other type of transformer to inject the test signal. The conducted susceptibility is performed to determine a drone’s ability to operate in the presence of an external interference signal propagated via a conductor. This usually happens in the power supply mains or from the battery terminals.
Transient immunity is also tested against powerline disturbances including surges, lightning strikes, and switching noise. In motor vehicles or drones, the tests are also performed on battery terminals. It is implicit that the immunity should be as per the standard allowed limits.
Electrostatic Discharge
Electrostatic discharge (ESD) is the sudden flow of electricity between two electrically charged objects caused by contact, an electrical short, or dielectric breakdown. A buildup of static electricity can be caused by turbocharging or by electrostatic induction. Electronic devices need to be tested for ESD to prevent the device from damage during operation, static, or packaging transportation.
Electrostatic discharge testing is typically performed with a piezo spark generator called an “ESD pistol.” Higher energy pulses, such as lightning or nuclear EMP simulations, can require a large current clamp or a large antenna that completely surrounds the drone. Some antennas are so large that they are located outdoors, and care must be taken not to cause an EMP hazard to the surrounding environment.
Electrical Fast Transient
The EFT immunity test is an attempt to simulate switching of inductive loads in the real world. A few examples of inductive load switching that could perceivably affect your product are bundled cables can capacitive couple disturbances from switched loads other cables, motors, and relays and toggling the switch nearby. These immunity tests are conducted while charging the drone through an AC adapter. This test proves that drone’s functionality is not affected by any fast changing voltages in the power supply input.
Environmental Certification
Environmental testing certification is done for all the electronic devices to make sure they meet certain operating conditions as per the regulatory standards. This is applicable for drones.
Most certification services have a logo that can be applied to products certified under their standards. This is seen as a form of corporate social responsibility, allowing companies to address their obligation to minimize the harmful impacts to the environment by voluntarily following a set of externally set and measured objectives.
Product designers have to choose to comply with specific standards and validate against them with the help of certification companies. All the components chosen for the product must comply with these standards and criteria.
Temperature
Commercial: 0 °C to 70 °C
Industrial: −40 °C to 85 °C
Military: −55 °C to 125 °C
The environmental testing and validation is done in two stages. First, the boards without enclosures are kept inside the thermal chamber in operating condition. The chamber temperature is varied between -40, 25 (Ambient) and 85 °C as per the temperature change profile specified in the standards. Usually the temperature change rate should not exceed 2 °C. The same procedure is repeated for the boards inside the enclosures, which are drones. This certifies the drones, if it operates in that specified temperature range without any issues as specified by the standard.
The drone system should also meet the storage temperature range. The drone system is kept inside the chamber, non-operational. The drone is stored for days in an extended temperature, usually -40 to 125 °C for industrial. After few days, the device is powered on in the ambient temperature. If the device is functional without any failures, it complies with the industrial storage temperature regulations.
Humidity
Prolonged exposure to humidity can cause serious damage to electronic products. Drones must pass the humidity requirement, which can be tested in the humidity chamber. Humidity testing is combined with temperature and altitude testing in most cases, to match real-world conditions. The drone must be operable between 10%-90% relative humidity, a most common standard requirement for any electronic product.
Altitude
High altitude simulation testing provides insight into the integrity and durability of products that are frequently operated, installed, stored, or transported in elevated conditions. Similar to humidity, altitude is usually combined with pressure. The system is validated and certified in different altitude and pressure conditions.
The commercial drones are allowed to fly as long as they stay in the visual range of the user. There are strict rules for flying drones in different countries. All the drones used for commercial and industrial are low-altitude drones. Drones flying above 400 meters from sea level have to obtain special permission from the regulating bodies.
Apart from operational altitude, the storage altitude needs to be tested. This validates the drones for packaging and shipment in higher altitudes.
Drop, Shock, and Vibration
Mechanical testing includes drop, shock, and vibration testing . The most common tests are 6-axis vibration (sine or random), drop shock (half-sine or random), and drop test on the floor (with or without the package). This qualifies the drone for certain standards and ensures the durability, robustness, and performance of the drones.
Packaged shock (drop): 6 face drops, 2 corner drops, and 3 edge drops for a total of 11 drops from a height of 36 inches if package weight < 20 pounds (30 inches if package weight ≥ 20 to < 40 pounds).
Packaged vibration: 0.015 g2/Hz from 5 Hz to 40 Hz, sloping to 0.00015 g2/Hz at 500 Hz (slope down), input acceleration is 1.09 gRMS, 1 hour per axis for all 3 axes for all samples; random control limit tolerance is ± 3 dB.
Reliability
As per a new study, electronics failures are the cause of 25% of all failures, the rest being attributed to weather and pilot error. Drone systems provide increasing protection against human-induced failures and enhanced performance through improvements in flight control software. These systems also have multiple sensors to detect and predict deterioration or failures. However, the low-cost commercial systems attractive to some of the leaner and cost-sensitive small-to-midsized businesses may not have the same level of redundancy to provide failsafe operations. This places a greater reliance on the reliability of each electronic component as control software improves and the balance of high-end redundant systems vs. less redundant low-to mid-range systems shifts. This is in no small part due to the relative complexity of the electronics in drone systems.
Service and Support
The ODM should include a manual and authorized service center partner listed for support. This will help the user to inspect the aircraft completely and to determine any issue and also the procedure to fix it. The user should able to solve any small fixes or should be able to estimate the repair cost and needed parts with the help of an authorized technical team. The local service centers should be able to fix any kinds of issues of the drone.
Pilot Distribution
Pilot testing provides an opportunity to identify the system-level bugs before the product launch. It also helps to fine-tune the final system.
A limited number of users are identified from the designers, test engineers, and customers for the pilot distribution. Inputs are taken from the users for fine tuning the system. Authorized service centers receive the pilot product for the required training for service and repair.
Device Software Upgrade
The final drone product provides a simple mechanism accessible to the user or the service personnel for device software upgrades through a laptop, PC, or directly from a wireless network.
Technical Service
The final product is accompanied by a technical user manual to enable the user or the service personal to easily configure the device. The user manual should include the brand new drone assembly fresh from the box (assembling the discrete parts like propellers and landing gears if shipped as separate components) and how to replace the broken drone parts. The accompanying technical service manual can be either a hard copy or an electronic copy or a website link.
Product Ecology
Products get qualified and approved by a product ecology engineer or scientist. An ecology engineer closely works with the designers to make sure the components, processing, and manufacturing are compliant with global environmental standards.
The component, PCB, and product manufacturers provide the test reports and corresponding collaterals for the ecological engineers for review up on request.
Prohibited Substances
Any component in the electrical BOM, system BOM, or the processes such as manufacturing and assembly should not contain any of the below listed prohibited substances. Most of the vendor datasheets and device collaterals specify the restrictions of hazardous substances and compliance. If not mentioned, the document must be available upon the request from the vendor.
Asbestos/All/Intentionally added
Fluorinated greenhouse gases (PFC, SF6, HFC)/All/Intentionally added
Mercury/Mercury compounds/All, except batteries/Intentionally added or 0.1 mass% of total Hg in homogenous material
Ozone-depleting substances (CFC, Halon, HBFC, HCFC, and others)/All/Intentionally added
Perfluorooctane sulfonates (PFOS)/All/Intentionally added or 0.1 mass% in material
Phenol, 2-(2Hbenzotriazol-2-yl)-4,6-bis(1,1-dimethlethyl) CAS number 3846-71-7/All/Intentionally added
Polybrominated biphenyls (PBBs)/All/0.1 mass% in homogenous material
Polybrominated diphenylethers (PBDEs)/All/0.1 mass% in homogenous material
Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and specific substitutes/All/Intentionally added
Polychlorinated terphenyls (PCTs)/All/0.005 mass% in material
Polychlorinated naphthalenes (PCNs)/All/Intentionally added
Radioactive substances/All/Intentionally added
Shortchain Chlorinated Paraffins (C10 – C13)/All/0.1 mass%
Tributyl Tin Oxide (TBTO) CAS Number 56-35-9/All/Intentionally added or 0.1 mass%
ROHS
RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive) is the directive that restricts the use of ten hazardous materials in the manufacturing of various types of electronic and electrical equipment. Initially there were six; four were added during 2015. The designers have to make sure the product is free of these hazardous materials.
Lead (Pb)
Mercury (Hg)
Cadmium (Cd)
Hexavalent chromium (Cr6+)
Polybrominated biphenyls (PBB)
Bis(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP)
Butyl benzyl phthalate (BBP)
Dibutyl phthalate (DBP)
Diisobutyl phthalate (DIBP)
EU REACH
The product manufacturer needs to establish and maintain a robust business process for tracking new EU Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemical (REACH) candidate list substances of very high concern (SVHCs) as they are posted on the ECHA website and to identify new reporting obligations.
Devices must be compliant with REACH Regulation EU NO 1907/2006 and latest REACH SVHC list. EU REACH SVHCs above the reporting threshold in articles supplied to the actual product owners or designers upon listing of the SHVC on the candidate lists along with Safe Use directions and location of substances in the device(s).
The manufacturer must also provide test reports for the standards such as IEC 62474, IPC 1752 Class 5/6, or negative declarations demonstrating compliance of cables, power cords, and power adaptors.
Negative REACH declarations are acceptable if approved or waived by the product ecology engineer.
California Proposition 65
California Proposition 65 protects the public from toxic substances that may cause cancer and birth defects and reduces or eliminates exposures to those chemicals generally, for example in consumer products, by requiring warnings in advance of exposure.
If the device contains cables, power cords, or power adaptors, all shall meet the California Proposition 65 requirements. The manufacturers must provide documentation and/or test reports that show compliance. In the event that California Proposition 65 substances are over the reporting threshold or intentionally added, the device must be labeled with the appropriate warning label. If the substance threshold is over the reportable level, the manufacturer must specify the chemical, location, and concentration.
WEEE
The WEEE directive sets collection, recycling, and recovery targets for all types of electrical goods, with a minimum rate of 4 kilograms per head of population per annum recovered for recycling by 2009. The RoHS directive sets restrictions upon European manufacturers as to the material content of new electronic equipment placed on the market.
All devices must comply with the WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) directive EN 50419. The WEEE marking must be on the board or system.
ISO
All manufacturers must be ISO-9001 certified and must have in place a Hazardous Substance Program Management program.
Product Certification Centers
Since the certification equipment is fairly costly and it is a very specialized skill to make drones, manufactures use the services of product certification centers. Product certification centers offer a full range of testing and certification services including pre-assessment, gap analysis, batch testing, and full compliance testing. The certification centers specialize in the job and cater services to various different manufactures.
Device Costing
Costing is very important when bringing a new physical product to market. It’s even more challenging for those bringing a complex product such as a drone to market. BOM costing starts during the architecture phase itself. Apart from the BOM cost, other costs such manufacturing and life cycle costs add to the final product cost.
Costing varies throughout the product design cycle. The product cost is different for proof of concept, prototype/pilot, and the actual product.
Production Cost
The production cost influences the final product cost. The final individual product cost is the outcome of total mass volume product cost and non-recurring engineering and manufacturing cost.
Production costs are the direct materials, direct labor, and manufacturing overhead used to manufacture products. The production costs are also referred to as manufacturing costs, product costs, a manufacturer’s inventorial costs, or the costs occurring in the factory.
Accessories Cost
Many products offer optional accessories bought separately for the product by the user. Some drones are designed in such a way that they can be used with third-party accessories or components.
Drone Regulations
Before flying the drone, the user need to be aware of the rules and regulations that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has put in place for flying drones in the US. There are similar regulations in other countries. The user also should be aware of the regulations and the rights of those around the flying drone.
The drone product has to include the rules or a document so that the user has easy access to regulations in order to educate him/herself.
Regulations
The basic rules for flying a drone are the following: fly the drone below 400 feet from the ground level; keep the drone within sight; never fly in the no-fly zone specified by the government; never fly over a crowded area; never fly under the influence; and never fly during an emergency situation like a fire.
Drone Registration
It is mandatory to register the drone and the pilot, if used for commercial and outdoor. However, non-commercial, indoor usage does not require any registration for the drone or the pilot.
Toy drones, which are tiny and weigh less than 8.8 ounces (250g), do not require registration. All other drones need to be registered for outdoor usage.
Summary
Acquiring the necessary certifications closes the industrial drone design process, and the drone product is officially ready to be shipped to the retail stores or the customers directly.
Once the drone product is out in the market, the marketing team starts their research again on the new market trends or new feature addition. All the limitations and technology gaps will be filled usually in the next revision products. This product life cycle goes on and on, not only for drones, but for any kind of electronic product.