EMC Standards Activity: Update and Focus on High Power Electromagnetic (HEMP) Standards

By this time you all have seen the extraordinary standards activity that took place in Hawaii for our Society’s 50th anniversary. I covered the many standards events in the last EMC Newsletter in quite some detail. I thought then for this Newsletter I would include an article by the chairman of a major international standards activity on HEMP. This facet of EMC has had little attention and it therefore is a welcome addition to this column.
But before we turn the column over to Dr. Radasky’s paper, I want to bring you all up to date on the summary of activity of the EMC Society Standards Development Committee (SDCom) which met on 8 November 2007 in conjunction with the EMC Society Board of Director’s meeting in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA. Chairman Stephen Berger conducted the meeting with Ed Hare serving as secretary. The highlights included discussions and reports of progress as follows:
EMCS Standards Status
• EM site survey (Std. 473)—New chair Vilitas: 80 percent or so completed, to be restarted to finish first quarter 2008
• RF absorber evaluation (Std. 1128)—Current until 2011. Look at extending frequency range.
• VDT emissions (Std. 1140)—Current until 2011. No issues at this time.
• Gasket characterization (Std. 1302)—Searching for latest draft to restart work.
• Probe calibration (Std. 1309 amend.)—New chair organizing the working group
• RF filter performance (P1560)—Current until 2010. No issues at this time.
• Computational EM (P1597.1)—Ballot pool formed. Will be uploaded for ballot by first part of 2008
• Computational EM (P1597.2) — Draft 99% mature. SDCom approved sending to mandatory editing committee (MEC) and then to ballot
• Intentional EMI to computers (1642)—Ballot delayed. SDCom will get draft soon.
• Line replaceable module (P1688) — Draft 80% stable. First draft to be completed in Spring 2008.
• TV emission measurements (Std. 187)—Reaffirmed, with comments. SDCom will resolve revision issues.
• Interference/coexistence-SDR (software defined radio) (P1900)—Now Standards Coordinating Committee 41 (Dynamic Spectrum Access Networks)
Steve Berger is chair with focus on improved use of spectrum including new techniques and methods of dynamic spectrum access require managing interference, coordination of wireless technologies and include network management and information sharing. Berger will provide liaison between SDCom and SCC-41.
• Powerline Communications equipment EMC testing (P1775)—Joint development among EMC Society, PES, and ComSoc, committee of 12 people. Working Group (WG) sent draft to sponsors to approve for ballot, but committee rejected standard and sent back to WGs. Negative votes not all from EMC Society. WG expects to resolve and rebut comments received from committee by the first quarter of 2008.
Other major standards activity also occurred in the last quarter of 2007. It was the meeting of the IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission) Advisory Committee on EMC (ACEC) chaired by our guest author, Dr. Radasky. ACEC met in Erlangen, Germany on December 11-13 as the guest of Siemens, which is headquartered there. Diethard Moehr, secretary of IEC TC77, was the gracious host. The major activity was the revision of IEC Guide 107, “EMC—Guide to the Drafting of Electromagnetic Compatibility Publications.” This document describes procedures for the drafting of IEC publications, which relate wholly or partly to EMC. They should be applied when preparing new EMC publications of EMC clauses as well as when revising existing publications. In addition, there were updated reports on the EMC activity from TC77 (EMC) and CISPR (Special International Committee on Radio Interference) as well as product committees such as IEC TC46 on cabling. Another lively discussion was held on the need to state a preference for a test method in a product standard when there is more than one method indicated as sufficient to show product EMC compliance. This subject will continue on into the next meeting. Finally, the chair indicated that there would be a need for a replacement chair at the start of 2009 as his term of office expires at the end of this year. The IEC Central Office has issued a circular asking for candidates.
The above ACEC summary then provides an excellent segue into the feature article for this column as the chair of TC77 on High Power Electromagnetics (HEMPs) also gave his progress report at the ACEC meeting. Without any further items to report, we now proudly introduce the following paper by Dr. Radasky. His photo appears at the end of the paper along with a short biography. EMC

Congratulations!
Andy Drozd, past president of the EMC Society and long time member of the EMC Society’s SDCom was recently appointed to the IEEE Standards Association Board for 2008-2009. He is the only member of this Board with major EMC experience in our standards operation and issues. We wish Andy well as the Standards Association Board manages the processing and approval of all IEEE standards.