EMCUK 2018 - Technical & Training Conferences
The Programme for the 2018 EMC Technical & Training Conferences are detailed below, please click here to download as a pdf file. This also contains the booking form which you can either complete manually or book securely online.
EMC UK 2018 Training Conference
Tuesday 25th September 2018 Training
Registration & Refreshments 08.30.
Session One 09.00 to 10.30
Everything we need to know in 2018 about... Shielding
Keith Armstrong
Shielding is the complementary part to filtering and transient suppression, and in 2018 has to deal with many GHz. We no longer always need metal or metallised plastic boxes: modern shielding can often be small, light, low cost and – if needed at all – can be simply a part that is assembled on the PCB.
10.30 to 11.00 Refreshments in the Exhibition Hub & Exhibition Visit
Session Two 11.00 to 12.30
Everything we need to know in 2018 about... Filtering and suppression
Tim Williams
Filtering is the complementary part of shielding. Supply, analogue and digital I/O interfaces have different requirements for filtering and transient suppression and we cover the relevant design principles for choosing the right configuration in each case.
12.30 to 14.00 Lunch in the Exhibition Hub & Exhibition Visit
Session Three 14.00 to 15.30
Everything we need to know in 2018 about... PCB layout for EMC
Keith Armstrong
The most cost-effective place to avoid EMC problems is in the PCB, but good PCB layout for EMC changes more rapidly than any other aspect of good EMC engineering, and in 2018 has to deal with many GHz. If PCB EMC design practices haven’t been reviewed against the state of the art since 2014 or 2015, it is important that we do so now.
Wednesday 26th September 2018 Training
Registration & Refreshments 08.30.
Session One 09.00 to 10.30
Everything we need to know in 2018 about... EMC compliance tests
Tim Williams
When our product goes to a test house it will be put through a series of EMC tests.
We describe each of the major emissions and immunity tests, and what they mean for design.
10.30 to 11.00 Refreshments in the Exhibition Hub & Exhibition Visit
Session Two 11.00 to 12.30
Everything we need to know in 2018 about... EMC pre-compliance testing
Keith Armstrong
Before we send a product to an EMC Test House (if we do, it’s not mandatory for the EU) we should already know it is likely to pass. Modern low-cost test instruments help save huge amounts of time and money, and some of them will be shown doing exactly that.
12.30 to 14.00 Lunch in the Exhibition Hub & Exhibition Visit
Session Three 14.00 to 15.30
Everything we need to know in 2018 about... Cabling practices for EMC
Tim Williams
Cables are a major coupling route for interference into and out of a product. We discuss the trade-offs that must be made in the choice between screened and unscreened cables, and show the important constructional and termination aspects in the use of screened cables.
EMC UK 2018 Technical Conference
Tuesday 25th September 2018 Technical Conference
Registration & Refreshments 08.30.
Session One 09.00 to 10.30
Antenna & Wireless Integration
Chairman - Paul Duxbury - MVG
Over the last few years, more and more everyday electrical and electronic products have started to incorporate antennas to allow them to have some form of wireless connectivity. The development of the Internet of Things, and the introduction of more and more ‘smart’ products, will see this trend continue and accelerate. Likewise, products which have traditionally contained antennas and wireless capabilities, such as cars and mobile phones, are increasingly having more and more antennas incorporated into their design. This is meaning that getting their design right, both the antenna and the rest of the electronics, to ensure that they can coexist and not cause interference is becoming an increasingly major part of the design process.
CE marking and product performance issues when collocating multiple radio transceivers
Charlie Blackham – Sulis Consultants
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EMI coupling of clocks and other signals causing receiver blocking
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Antenna inefficiency
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Receiver overload due to co-located transmitter
Overview of Different Techniques for Antenna Measurement
Paul Duxbury – Rainford EMC Systems Ltd
With more and more electronic devises including multiple antennas, the methods for measuring these and ensuring that their co-existence are also developing. This presentation will overview the different techniques which can be used for antenna measurements, including multi & single probe, near and far field approaches, and consider the advantages of different types of antenna and applications.
Overview of Different Techniques for Antenna Measurement
Paul Duxbury – Rainford EMC Systems Ltd
10.30 to 11.00 Refreshments in the Exhibition Hub & Exhibition Visit
Session Two 11.00 to 12.30
Wireless Power Transfer, including EM fields and Human Health
Chairman - TBA
WPT-EV is a serious threat to LF/MF broadcasting and to the HF amateur service in general. Unlike low power commodity WPT electrical products, it is a high density, high power and high signals occupancy system operating at up to 22 KW (90 KHz nominally) in a domestic urban environment. EMC Standards covering design and implementation are being developed, however the likelihood is that the time honoured broadcast protection limits will be seriously surpassed in radiated emissions.
EMC and Wireless Power Transfer- An update
Martin Wright – CISPR I
Wireless Power transfer is one of the quickest growing technological areas and has the potential to cause significant interference. The presenter will give an overview of progress in ETSI, CENELEC and CISPR all of whom are active in setting EMC standards for this technology. In addition he will cover the concerns of the broadcasting industry against the threats inherent in this new technology
TBA Steve Hayes - Element
12.30 to 14.00 Lunch in the Exhibition Hub & Exhibition Visit
Session Three 14.00 to 15.30
Test & Troubleshooting
Chairman - Richard Marshall
Analysis of the effects of the Electromagnetic Fast Transient test
Tim Williams Elmac Services
The EFT/Burst test of IEC 61000-4-4 is a good test of the susceptibility of a product to switching transients. But it is also often found to provoke susceptibilities, particularly in digital equipment, which can be hard to fix. A typical reason for this difficulty is that the actual coupling paths followed by the transient disturbances are obscure. This paper shows how you might analyse such paths and offers some measurement results on a simple unit which illustrate the analysis.
Characterisation of emission from mains cables
Richard Marshall and John Woodgate – Consultants
Established methods for managing mains cable termination ignore the conversion of differential-mode (DM) emissions to common-mode (CM) and the resulting radiation.
Radiated measurements from mains cables are inaccurate and non-reproducible if there is a significant DM conducted emission (non-radiating) and the cable is terminated by a network with
VDSL Radiation and its signal characterisation
Dr Martin Sach – RSGB
Often VDSL2 broadband interference goes unrecognised since it looks like background noise. This is not surprising as any characteristic of a communication system that is distinguishable from white noise represents inefficiency in the use of the spectrum. To detect modern digital communications signals such as VDSL2 one needs to understand the coding techniques used and any aspects of them which are less random. Graphical analysis software has been developed that identifies, isolates, and measures these signal components even at poor signal/noise ratios.
Wednesday 26th September 2018 Technical Conference
Registration & Refreshments 08.30.
Session One 09.00 to 10.30
Specifying Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) and other Electromagnetic Effects Chairman - Prof Ian MacDiarmid
Many prime contractors or designers and developers of complex systems do not design and develop the equipment which they integrate into the final system. As such they have to develop specifications which control all the electromagnetic effects which the equipment has to cope with. These include the traditional EMC susceptibility and emission requirements. In addition, there are a growing number of other electromagnetic effects, including electrostatic charging, induced effects of Lightning, intentional electromagnetic interference etc.
Towards a risk-based systems engineering approach for automotive EMC engineering
Alastair Ruddle - HORIBA MIRA Limited
The range and complexity of technologies that are now being deployed in modern vehicles are increasing at an unprecedented rate. Furthermore, the pace of change is becoming so fast that standardization activities struggle to support these on-going developments. As the role of the driver/operator is progressively removed from vehicle control, the electronic systems that replace the human inputs will need to provide extremely high levels of dependability in order to ensure the public acceptability of these technologies. Thus, the electronic systems of future vehicles, as well as the intelligent transport systems that they interact with, will need to be designed to ensure a high degree of resilience to a wide range of threats. The adoption of more robust systems engineering practices and a risk-based approach will be key to meeting the challenges of future automotive EMC engineering. This paper outlines the elements of a unified risk-based approach to support the development of future vehicles that are highly resilient to environmental and criminal threats, thus ensuring acceptable levels of functional safety, safety of the intended functionality, cyber security and mission-critical functionality.
Defining a Limit for Rail Vehicle AC Current Emissions
Peter Brown - Principal Design Engineer, Network Rail Design Delivery
The EMC Directive, first published by the EU in 1986, has proved extraordinarily successful in preventing electromagnetic interference in most people’s experience.
The railway, however, has a unique environment, with high voltages, high current, and very long parallel conductors carrying low voltage signals, but the European EMC standards for the railway (EN 50121 series) do not address emissions below 150 kHz, where almost all the electromagnetic energy of AC electric traction vehicles exists.
To enable the rolling stock manufacturer to design for compatibility, it is inadequate to require trains not to interfere with lineside systems. The designer needs to know what this means in terms they can control - namely a limit on current emissions. Then they can design and test to those limits during development of the train package, gaining confidence that the train will be compatible with the infrastructure before commencing route trials.
This paper outlines the development of a limit on rolling stock current emissions.
10.30 to 11.00 Refreshments in the Exhibition Hub & Exhibition Visit
Session Two 11.00 to 12.30
EMC Design Tools, this session to include simulation, system integration & diagnosis.
Chairman - Dr John F Dawson
Design of equipment to meet EMC specifications is still a challenge. Desktop computers are now powerful enough to allow full wave electromagnetic solvers to be used for many practical problems. Signal integrity and PCB layout analysis is available with PCN layout tools, using the tools for practical problems & understanding the results is still challenging for a design engineer. In addition, there are many attempts at providing simplified design calculators to estimate signal integrity, shielding, filtering, decoupling etc. available in EMC text books. In this session we aim to illustrate the application and pitfalls of these tools.
The role of modelling in infrastructure EMC design and assurance.
I D. Flintoft and D. Hayes, SNC-Lavalin’s Atkins Business
Electromagnetic compatibility is an important part of the design and assurance process for complex infrastructure projects. It is primarily controlled by the application of national and industry specific standards, guidelines and codes of practice with conservative margins to allow for straightforward and efficient design with low residual risk of adverse interference. Occasionally this approach must be supplemented by more detailed analysis to overcome cost, constructability or other constraints. In such cases modelling of increasing sophistication can be applied to provide design solutions. The complexity of the modelling must be balanced against the cost and, very importantly, the ability to validate the results; simpler models are therefore often the tool of choice. This paper provides examples of the application of modelling on recent rail infrastructure projects and considers how the advent of Digital Engineering may influence the application of modelling in the future.
Approximation strategies for practicable EMC simulation of automotive traction batteries
Alastair Ruddle - HORIBA MIRA Limited
Traction batteries for electric vehicles are large and complex sub-systems. Although they are routinely optimized to meet a wide range of performance targets (electro-chemical, mechanical, thermal etc.), there are also electromagnetic aspects to be addressed that are often overlooked. This paper outlines approximation strategies that have been developed to facilitate the simulation of EMC issues, such as battery RF impedance and coupling between the high voltage power network and the low voltage networks that pervade the battery assembly to support control and monitoring functions. A related issue is human exposure to electromagnetic fields (EMF) associated with the fluctuating traction currents flowing through the battery. For EMC investigations, more practicable measurement of individual cells has been used to develop efficient hybrid 3D/circuit models for assemblies of large numbers of such cells used to form traction batteries. For EMF assessments, knowledge of the 3D path geometry and frequency content of traction current waveforms can be used to estimate the spatial distributions of low frequency magnetic fields and exposure metrics.
Open Source Cable Models for EMI simulations in Spice
C. Smartt , M.J. Basford, S. Greedy and D.W.P. Thomas
The George Green Institute for Electromagnetics Research, University of Nottingham.
One of the most significant coupling paths for electromagnetic interference into systems is via cables [1]. This may be cable to cable coupling within a bundle of conductors or coupling onto cables from an illuminating electromagnetic field. These interference coupling effects may be enhanced by cable terminations such as pigtail connections of shields or by crosstalk within connectors. In addition, imperfect cable shields allow coupling onto shielded systems via transfer impedance and transfer admittance.
These issues can now be addressed by Spice based multi-conductor transmission line models that implement the state-of-the-art in cable simulation techniques [2]in a form of an open source toolset for EMI simulation [3]. The availability of sophisticated cable bundle models within Spice allows for realistic EMI aspects of cabling, including connectors, to be included within a circuit model of a system.
The development of the Spice cable bundle models has been governed by the requirement for an accurate, robust, numerically efficient model with the following features:
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Time domain and frequency domain simulation capabilities
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Ability to describe frequency dependent cable properties
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Models of shielded cables with transfer impedance coupling and including multiple levels of shielding
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Ability to model twisted pair cables
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Capability for the inclusion of coupling from external electromagnetic field sources onto cables
The development of the Spice cable bundle models will be outlined and the model validation described. The use of the Spice cable bundle models will be demonstrated by application of the models in realistic scenarios; a CANBUS network model, a crosstalk calculation in a SpaceWire communication system and the simulation of an ESD test.
12.30 to 14.00 Lunch in the Exhibition Hub & Exhibition Visit
Session Three 14.00 to 15.30
Other Compliance Issues Including RED & Certification
Chairman - Michael Derby - Director ACB Certification
An introduction to the afternoon’s session and a chance to consider why engineers and business people are interested in these requirements.
Safety Certification: NRTL, CB and LVD Compliance
Denis Butcher – Service Development Manager. UL VS Ltd
The presentation will cover the latest developments in the LV Directive. CE marking aspects for safety, using the IEC CB Scheme for international trade and moving towards a Hazard Based approach to safety in 2019. We will also include a discussion of labelling requirements.
EMC Directive: The past, present and future
Joe Lomako – New Business Development Manager. UL VS Ltd
The presentation will cover the latest developments in the EMC Directive and a review of the new legislative framework. CE marking aspects for EMC, using the CB scheme for EMC testing and when to use a notified body for EMC Directive compliance.
The RE Directive
Michael Derby – Director ACB Certification
The presentation will cover the Radio Equipment Directive (RED) and how to apply it to products with radio transmitter or receiver operations.
It will include an update on the status of test standards, installing radio modules, the documentation required by the manufacturer and when a Notified Body is required
Radio Testing
Daniel Sims – RN Electronics
The Presentation will give a brief overview of EU / FCC / ISED radio testing requirements, including a comparison between them. It will cover current test method references, required test modes, and common testing issues and failures seen at a test lab. We will also look at a typical product and standards/rules that may apply to it.
FCC and ISED
Michael Derby – Director ACB Certification
The presentation will cover the USA (FCC) and Canada (ISED) requirements for compliance of electronic and radio equipment. It will include an overview of authorisation routes, DoC and Certification, test lab requirements and common mistakes observed by a certification body.