EMC Impact of Disturbances Generated by Multiple Sources

In this paper, the impact of an increasing number of arbitrary electrical/electronic devices on the overall radiated emissions is investigated. Understanding and quantifying such an impact are prerequisites to the proper evaluation of electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) of various electronic systems and devices and, if needed, to revisiting the international standards. To evaluate the radiated emissions from multiple electronic devices, each arbitrary electronic device is characterized using an equivalent Huygens’s surface, in which the tangential components of electric and magnetic near fields are calculated (or measured). The radiated emission from the arbitrary electronic device can be calculated using the electric and magnetic near fields for an arbitrary phase (correlated or uncorrelated), position, and orientation. The influence of several parameters affecting the radiated emissions from multiple arbitrary electronic devices, including the number of disturbance sources, the polarization of each device, the radiation pattern of each device, the location and orientation of each device, and the phase shifts between devices, are analyzed. The numerical results show that the mentioned parameters have a significant effect on the radiated emissions, and cannot be neglected in EMC considerations. In general, increasing the number of electronic devices leads to an increase in the level of radiated emissions. However, the increase depends on other parameters such as the arrangement (the radiation pattern for each device, the distance between the devices, and the orientation and/or polarization of each device). The proposed method can be straightforwardly applied to devices characterized by near-field measurements or multimodular large equipment with long cables.