Electromagnetic compatibility : compliance with emerging regulations

Over the past three years, Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) has emerged as a critical aspect of electrical and electronic design. In particular, this field of study has moved from being a specialist \stand alone\" discipline undertaken by research institutes and the military to a topic that is of concern to everybody dealing with electrical/electronic products or services. The main impetus for this lift in profile has been the recent introduction of legislation concerning EMC which has been universally adopted by all member countries of the European Union (EU). This legislation initially introduced in 1992 is referred to as \"the EMC directive 89/336/EEC\" and is widely regarded as \"the most comprehensive complex and possibly contentious directive ever to emanate from Brussels\". The EMC Directive has not only unified the EMC requirements for trade throughout the European Union but has effectively led the way for EMC standards throughout the commercial world. The main objectives of this thesis are to outline the basic principles of EMC detail the requirements of the latest standards and associated testing techniques and to illustrate the issues that need to be addressed by design engineers in order to achieve EMC compliance. A practical and economical EMC test set up is documented and measurement results obtained from Switch-Mode Power Supply equipment are compared to fully calibrated measurements taken at a third party test house in order to determine the accuracy and thus usefulness of these \"pre-compliance\" test measurements."