Over 20 people attended the late fall 2005 meeting
of the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) Advisory
Committee on EMC (ACEC), held at the IEEE headquarters in Piscataway,
New Jersey, USA. ACEC provides a forum for airing EMC issues among
all the IEC technical committees which have EMC interests or applications.
This meeting focused on several issues, but the one most interesting
was that on documenting suggestions as to which statements should
not be included in EMC standards (IEC standards in particular)
as they are regulatory in nature and that is then the concern
of regulating bodies and authorities and not the standards writers.
This matter was brought to attention by Mr. Robert DeVry, the
European Electrotechnical Standards Body (CENELEC) EMC consultant
as a liaison message from CENELEC committee TC210. After over
an hour of deliberation (and following on from discussions at
two previous ACEC meetings), ACEC agreed to send their recommendation
to the IEC Standardization Management Board (SMB) of the regulatory
wording that should be avoided in IEC product (family) and generic
EMC standards. The statements included:
- Referring to the role of national authorities
in general, for example, indicating that national authorities
may relax the standards requirements, ignore them or make them
more severe.
- Concerning the legal responsibilities or legal
roles of parties involved (manufacturers, operators, authorities,
etc.).
- Referring to sales restrictions, legal sanctions,
obligations for entering the market, ban of sales, contractual
arrangements/relations between parties.
- Imposing obligations outside the scope of
the standards, as for example: obligation to perform tests in
locations defined by non-technical parameters, such as manufacturer’s
premises or third party laboratories.
- Related to cases of dispute but not all. Note:
A replacement suggested in lieu of the dispute statement is: “Where
a standard gives options for testing particular requirements with
a choice of test methods, compliance can be shown against any
of the test methods using the appropriate limit. In any situation
where it is necessary to re-test the equipment, the test method
originally chosen should be used in order to guarantee consistency
of the results.”
- Including dates of application of the standard
as a normative part of the standard. Note: Advice on dates can
be placed in an informative annex or in an introductory informative
clause in the standard.
- Introducing provisional limits or requirements.
Note: Advice on any such provisions may be placed in an informative
annex.
As of this writing, the SMB had not yet met
to consider the proposal. It is hoped that this recommendation
will be accepted.
Another “hot” topic at the meeting was the future
of IEC committees which provide horizontal standards that should
be considered by product committees. An example is the work of
the IEC Special Committee on Radio Interference (CISPR) which
provide for emission limits that should be widely applied to protect
the radio spectrum/usage. This topic is being considered as the
SMB is ready to make changes to IEC Guide 108. (The relationship
between technical committees with horizontal functions and product
committees and the use of basic publications.) The changes proposed
initially appeared to eliminate horizontal committees as it was
felt that all the documents produced by committees by that name
would have to be used or reviewed by all the product committees
for applicability to their work. This is a daunting task as there
are probably a hundred or so such standards. In fact, such committees
do not publish standards that are all horizontal in nature. Upon
further review, there were words that indicated that the horizontal
function is still needed but that the committees will not be called
“horizontal” to avoid the confusion of applicability
noted above.
ACEC deliberated for hours on the implication of modifications
to Guide 108 at this meeting. Finally, in the end the committee
decided that to be quite clear on the role and ownership of EMC
standards which should be considered by all product committees,
it was best to avoid being swept up with the other horizontal
committees addressed in Guide 108. Since the major IEC committees
(TC77 (EMC) and CISPR) present guidance to product committees
already in Guide 107 (Electromagnetic Compatibility—Guide
to the drafting of electromagnetic compatibility publications),
ACEC crafted a request to the SMB to address ACEC’s comments
on Guide 108, i.e. that it was not really the intention to include
EMC within Guide 108 and hence the following words should be entered
in the revision to this Guide: “This guide does not apply
to EMC and Safety standard activities as these are explicitly
addressed in IEC Guides 107 and 104.” (The preparation of
safety publications and the use of basic safety publications and
group safety publications.) Since in Guide 107 there are several
references to Guide 108 clauses, if this clause is accepted, ACEC
will then launch an activity to revise Guide 107 eliminating references
to Guide 108 so that it is a stand alone document.
There were many reports presented at the meeting from a variety
of standards organizations such the ITU-T (International Telecommunications
Union—Telecommunications) and CENELEC as well as IEC product
committees which attend such meetings; including IEC TC22 which
at this meeting presented their work on adjustable speed electrical
power drive systems—Part 3: EMC requirements and specific
test methods (which, by the way, involve emission standards set
by CISPR Subcommittee B on Industrial, Scientific and Medical
Devices). The work of TC77 and CISPR and their joint task forces
was presented. A lively discussion was held on the current situation
in standardization and regulatory activity on power line communications.
ACEC is chaired by Dr. Bill Radasky of Metatech with Dr. Remy
Baillif of the IEC Central Office serving as the committee secretary.
The membership is comprised of:
- Four representatives from TC 77 and subcommittees
- Four representatives from CISPR and subcommittees
- Experts appointed by the Standardization Management
Board of the IEC
- Representatives of technical committees whose
activities include EMC matters as an important part of their work
The author is a member of ACEC serving as one
of the representatives from CISPR (Chairman of CISPR Subcommittee
A on Radio–interference and statistical methods).
The next meeting of ACEC is scheduled for the end of May 2006
in Paris. EMC
Introducing the New Chair of the
EMC Society Standards Education and Training Committee (SETCom)
Qiubo Ye—New SETCom chair
Dr. Ye is a Project Leader and Research Scientist in Electromagnetics
and Compatibility for the Communications Research Center,
in Ottawa, Canada. His research involves Ultra-Wideband (UWB)
antenna design, EM simulation by FDTD, numerical methods for
electrically large structures, interaction between humans
and cell phones, and similar studies. His professional and
academic experience is varied. Since 2003, he is an Adjunct
Research Professor, Electronics Department, at Carleton University,
Ottawa, Canada where he advises graduate students. He obtained
his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of
Manitoba, Manitoba, Canada, 2000. He obtained his Master of
Science in Electrical Engineering at the Beijing Graduate
School, North China Electrical Power Institute (now North
China Electrical Power University), China, 1988. His Bachelor
of Science in Electrical Engineering was awarded from the
Hefei University of Technology, Anhui, China, 1983. Dr. Ye
is a member of URSI Commission B, a Senior Member of the IEEE
AP-S, MTT-S and EMC-S, and a member of the Applied Computational
Electromagnetics Society (ACES). He is also a member of EMC-S
TC 9 on Computational Electromagnetics as well as a reviewer
for the IEEE Transactions on AP, MTT, and Antennas and Wireless
Propagation Letters.
The Standards Education and Training Committee (SETCom) is
responsible for preparing and conducting seminars for working
groups on the development, coordination, balloting, and support
of IEEE EMC standards, as well as enhancing the awareness
of IEEE EMC standards throughout the EMC community and demonstrating
how these standards can be effectively applied to the development,
production, and use of equipment and systems.
Dr. Ye has already arranged a technical session at the Portland
EMC Symposium on the subject of EMC standardization.
He can be reached on qiubo.ye@crc.ca
Please join the Standards Committee members in welcoming Qiubo
Ye to our EMC Society standards leadership community. |
MIL-STD-1541 Update
A meeting was held January 9, 2006 in Reno,
Nevada to initiate a new American Institute of Aeronautics and
Astronautics (AIAA) standard to update and convert MIL-STD-1541A
to a military/commercial/civil space standard. The initial draft
is based on a recently-released Aerospace Corporation document
which is already being levied on some contracts. Companies and
individuals interested in participation on this fast–paced
(goal is to have the standard completed in November 2006) activity
should contact Michele Ringrose of the AIAA, micheler@aiaa.org.
The progress of this AIAA S-121 standard development will be tracked
through the IEEE EMC Society SACCom.
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