Development of Radiated emission and Radiated immunity test setups for an anechoic chamber

Electromagnetic interference/electromagnetic compatibility (EMI/EMC) testing is a compulsory part of today’s electronics compliance and reliability. The importance of EMI/EMC arose with the advent of wireless devices to provide interference free envi-ronment. Spurious emissions emitted by electronic devices cannot be predicted without EMC measurements. If these emissions emanating from a specific device are above a certain limit, they can be harmful for devices operating in its close vicinity. Interference is an unwanted signal that causes disturbance in the normal operation of an electronic device. As a result there occurs degradation in the functionality of the victim device that is unacceptable. To avoid this undesired behavior of the devices, international regulatory authorities have introduced different standards and regulations. All devices consisting of electrical circuits are tested to comply these international standards and rules. The main objective of EMI/EMC testing is to make sure that a device i. Does not create interference to other devices. ii. Is not susceptible to emissions produced by other devices. iii. Does not cause interference with itself. The prime objectives of this thesis work include the development of testing programs in Agilent VEE intended to conduct radiated emission (RE) and radiated immunity (RI) tests automatically and to study the suitability of an anechoic chamber for radiated im-munity test. The thesis is divided into two major parts. First part contains the introduc-tion and theoretical background and covers first three chapters. It describes the need and importance of RE and RI testing. Second part presents the development of testing programs, test equipment, procedures and results in detail. Testing programs developed during current thesis include most of the necessary features requisite by IEC and CISPR standards and available in commercial testing software for example in Total Integrated Laboratory Environment (TILE), EMC 32 and Schaffner. The study of anechoic cham-ber, testing programs and results illustrate that the expected goals of the thesis have been successfully achieved. For future studies and improvements practical analysis and tests are recommended to be performed on the chamber. It could not be done during current thesis work due to unavailability of power amplifiers for radiated immunity test