The Inventor

“Without Dr. Wong’s scheme of Automatic Background Correction (ABC), the expense of frequent recalibration by field technicians would have sorely limited DCV applications.”
Robert J Bruce Warmack
Oak Ridge National Laboratory

“Until now, the widespread implementation of DCV has been hindered by maintenance costs. If calibration is desired, Dr. Wong has invented a means to accomplish this using only ambient environmental air rather than bottles of calibration gas.”
Robert J Bruce Warmack
Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Chief Engineer C. W. Tse                                         Jacob Wong

Born and raised in Hong Kong, Dr. Wong graduated from Princeton University (’63) and received his Ph.D in Physics (‘67) under Professor Arthur Schawlow, co-inventor of the laser, for research work in infrared lasers. He joined the Hewlett-Packard Company in 1968 working in medical electronics until 1978 when he moved to Hughes Aircraft Company shifting to work in the aerospace industry. He founded Telaire Systems in 1989, specializing in non-dispersive infrared (NDIR) gas sensors, and sold to Engelhard Corporation in 1997. Today Telaire Systems is part of GE Sensing, an operating division of General Electric Company. In 2003, after a non-compete period within the field of NDIR gas sensors, Dr. Wong started Airware, Inc., with a focus on R&D for advanced NDIR gas sensors. Dr. Wong remains as CEO and principal shareholder of Airware, Inc.

Since graduation from Stanford, Dr. Wong has concentrated his work in the R&D of NDIR gas sensors. In the early 1970’s, he pioneered the development of Hewlett-Packard’s legendary 47210A Caponometer, a medical CO₂ analyzer for monitoring cardiac patients in the ICU of hospitals. Over the years, Dr. Wong has been granted over 50 US patents in the field of infrared gas sensors. His most notable achievements include an aluminum waveguide sample chamber concept and an NDIR gas sensor output self-correction software (commonly referred to as the Automatic Background Calibration or ABC), which are both widely in use throughout the gas sensor industry today. His most recent inventions include an Absorption Biased (AB) methodology in the design of NDIR gas sensors which is capable of significantly reducing the output drifts of such sensors over time and a re-calibration methodology for NDIR gas sensors, a wireless technique that is simple, reliable and cost-effective without the need for any gas standards. This latter invention represents a dramatic breakthrough in the reduction of maintenance costs for all future installed NDIR gas sensors in the HVAC&R industry.