AUTOMATED SYSTEM FOR ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELD GENERATION AND IMMUNITY TESTING Eric J .

Vanzura National Bureau of Standards Electromagnetic Fields Division 325 Broadway Boulder, CO 80303

Abstract An interactive computer-controlled system has been constructed for radiated immunity measurements. It can set up a desired unperturbed field strength at a point in space and simultaneously measure field strengths and polarizations at up to ten different positions. Field mapping experiments have been performed with the system in an anechoic chamber, a partially loaded shielded room, and an unloaded shielded room. Results confirm dramatic improvement in spatial field uniformity as more absorber is used. If the unperturbed fields in a specified test volume do not deviate more than a desired amount for any frequency of interest, meaningful immunity tests can be performed. An equipment under test (EUT) is placed into the test volume and its response to radiation is measured using current probes and a spectrum analyzer. Such an experiment requires many mid-experiment calculations making automation highly desirable because of significant time savings. Our frequency range of interest is 50 to 200 MHz because this is a particularly difficult frequency band in which to perform reliable immunity tests. By measuring the field variations in a test zone, we can more accurately estimate systematic uncertainty limits due to spatial field deviations. This allows testing in an anechoic chamber below what is normally considered its lowest usable frequency. If an anechoic chamber is not available, a partially loaded shielded room can be used, with the necessary requirement that specifications on spatial field uniformity be relaxed. This measurement system can be used in conjunction with many other facilities, such as a TEM cell, an open field site (ground screen) or a reverberating chamber, and can be used to test at frequencies from the low kHz up to 2 GHz. Introduction The automated radio frequency (RF) field generation and immunity test system described here satisfies a need to measure radiated-to-conductedRF responses in the 50 to 200 MHz frequency range. This is an important frequency range because many commercial transmitters, including television and FM radio, operate in this frequency band. However, common test facilities such as the TEM cell, anechoic chamber, open field site, shielded room and reverberating chamber are not well suited for generating a uniform field throughout a large enough test volume at these frequencies. As frequency increases, TEM cells have to become smaller in size to avoid multimoding. The upper frequency limit of a The three-meter TEM cell is about 50 MHz [ I ] . National Bureau of Standards (NBS) anechoic chamber is lined with one-meter absorber and is not normally H z because of absorber inefficiency used below 200 M [2]. At lower frequencies, reflections from the walls, floor and ceiling [ 3 ] will make the calculation
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o f fields from a transmitting antenna difficult ( 4 , 5 ] . An open-field site can generate fairly uniform fields throughout a large test volume, but only authorized frequencies may be tested. Shielded rooms are difficult to use in any frequency range because reflections and resonant modes cause large and unpredictable field variations [ 6 , 7 ] . Reverberating chambers are used primarily at higher frequencies and rely on adequate stirring of resonant modes. The lower-frequency limit of the NBS 2 . 7 4 x 3 . 0 5 x 4 . 5 7 m H z [E]. Even at 200 reverberating chamber is 200 M MHz, spatial variations of the statistically determined E-field are no better than +8 dB for this reverberating chamber.

Because it is difficult to predict spatial field distributions in the 50 to 200 MHz frequency range, a more empirical approach is needed. By measuring the electromagnetic field distribution in a test volume, we can define the systematic uncertainty of a test field. If the measured deviations in field strength and polarization are within acceptable limits, immunity testing of an EUT may be performed. Field mapping results of a 40 x 40 cm test area are presented for experiments performed in an anechoic chamber, a partially loaded shielded room and an unloaded shielded room. Large field deviations in the unloaded shielded room prevent proper immunity testing. In the partially loaded shielded room, field deviations are lessened, but still require large uncertainty limits. From 50 to 200 MHz, the most suitable facility for generating a relatively uniform test field is the anechoic chamber, even though it is not normally designed for such a low frequency range. This is because its absorber still adequately attenuates reflections to give a fairly uniform electromagnetic field generated by a transmitting antenna. Measurement Obiectives The overall problem to be solved is how to accurately measure the conducted response of an EUT to H z frequency range. a radiated field in the 50 to 200 M The primary difficulty is in generating a relatively uniform field throughout a test volume large enough to contain an EUT. Polarization and field strengths must not deviate significantly at any point in the test volume to assure good correlation between EUT response and field strength. Therefore the first objective is to define error bounds due to field deviations in the anechoic chamber, the partially loaded shielded room and the unloaded shielded room. The second objective is to observe perturbations caused by the presence of an EUT. The EUT introduces a mutual coupling with the transmit antenna, causing additional variations in field strength surrounding the EUT and possibly modified polarizations. Observation of these phenomena could yield design information for EUT hardening and show test engineers desirable EUT orientations for future experiments.
CH2569-2/88/0000-0003 $1.00 C 1988 I m

The third objective for these tests is to validate the use of current probes for measuring radiated-toconducted currents on wires inside the EUT. Current probes and associated cabling must be immune to radiated pickup and have a linear response. To measure absolute current, the probes must be calibrated in linear units of A D . Calibration files for the current probes are loaded by the computer during the experimental configuration process. Measurement System The test configuration for partially loaded shielded room measurements is shown in figure 1. The shielded room measures 7 . 1 8 m long, 3 . 3 5 m deep, and 2.76 m high. 28 pieces of 0.66-meter (26-inch) absorber were placed on opposite walls as shown. This room is converted to an unloaded shielded room by removing the absorber. The signal generator output drives an RF amplifier connected to a biconical transmitting antenna located 1 . 1 3 m above the floor. Incident and reflected powers at the biconical antenna are measured using a bidirectional coupler with RF power meters. EUT responses are measured using current probes connected to a spectrum analyzer. The signal generator, RF power mzters, and spectrum analyzer are controlled by computer through an IEEE 488 (GPIB) interface. The electric field strength probe system is controlled using a General Purpose Input Output (GPIO) interface. The same system was used for anechoic chamber measurements, except that a 50 W amplifier was used instead of a 3 W amplifier to achieve higher field strengths. The desired field strength in shielded room measurements was 6 V/m. The desired field strength for most anechoic chamber measurements was 1 5 V/m. An NBS-developed isotropic probe system measures electric field strengths [9]. Nine isotropic probes were used to measure electric field strengths at nine different locations on a 4 0 by 4 0 cm test area. This square test area is located 1.25 m above the floor. Each probe location is numbered one through nine as shown in figure 2. Each isotropic probe has three orthogonal 5 cm dipoles which respond to orthogonal components of the radiated electric field. A small

diode at the center of each dipole generates a DC voltage which is measured by the probe systems A/D converters via RF-transparent high-impedance lines. The digital output from each dipole channel is read by the computer and calibrations are then applied. In this way, field strength for each polarization is calculated. Net field strength is then determined by taking the square root of the sum of the squares of the three orthogonal responses. The experiment is performed in a four step process. First, the operator answers prompts by the computer to set the frequencies to be tested and to set the desired unperturbed field strength which will be generated at the reference position. The probe at position 5 in the center of the test area is considered the reference probe. For the experimental data presented, the biconical transmitting antenna was in the vertical orientation, 70 cm from the reference probe position. Experiments also were performed with the biconical antenna in the horizontal and endfire orientations, and yielded similar results. Next, the computer makes a reference run to find the signal generator power output levels that produce the desired field strength at the reference position for each frequency. To do s o , the computer sets the signal generator to the first frequency and raises RF power until the measured field strength at reference position 5 is within 0 . 1 dB of the desired field strength. The signal generator output level is stored by the computer and the process is repeated for each frequency. The third step is to repeat the reference signal generator levels and measure unperturbed field strengths in the test area. This step is performed to observe the repeatablity of the reference field and to measure field strengths and polarizations at all nine probe positions. After measuring spatial deviations of the unperturbed field in the test area, test engineers can set electromagnetic field uncertainty bounds.

Figure 1. Top view of automated system and absorber loaded shielded room.

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Lastly, the operator places an EUT in the test zone and measures EUT responses and field perturbations. The EUT used is an aluminum case with three type N connectors as shown in figure 3 . A 45 cm monopole was attached to the center conductor of the top connector and a 60 cm monopole was attached to the center pin of the connector on the longest side of the EUT. Two EUT responses are measured. Currents excited by radiated pick up flow into the EUT, where a current probe detects RF currents flowing to the third type N connector. The response o f the current probe is measured at one input to the spectrum analyzer. This current probe is calibrated before the experiment, and the calibration data are loaded during the experimental configuration process. The calibration file is in units of amperes per volt as a function of frequency. The second EUT response is simply a coaxial cable connected directly to the third type N connector. The signal is measured at a second spectrum analyzer input. The perturbed fields around the EUT also may be measured at this time.

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ExDerimental Results Figures 4 , 5 and 6 show unperturbed field strength results measured in the anechoic chamber, the partially loaded shielded room and the unloaded shielded room, respectively. In an anechoic chamber, field strengths and polarizations behave predictably because reflections from the walls are attenuated. At each frequency, the field strength at the reference position repeats to within 0 . 2 dB and field uniformity over the test area is within 3 dB of the desired field. From 50 to 200 MHz, the test zone is in the near field of the transmit antenna, so the electric field is stronger at probe positions nearer the antenna due to 1/R2 and l/R3 terms of the field equations. If the test zone were located farther away from the transmit antenna, field strength uniformity could be improved because the 1/R component of the radiated field would dominate. Electric field polarization in the anechoic chamber lined up with the vertical transmitting antenna at all frequencies. If an anechoic chamber is not available, the partially loaded shielded room could be used for immunity tests, provided that uncertainty bounds are relaxed. Although the field mapping results of figure 5 for the partially loaded shielded room do not encourage its use for precise immunity testing, use of the partially loaded shielded room is much more preferable than the unloaded shielded room. In the partially loaded shielded room, field strengths in the test area differ by up to 20 dB. In the unloaded shielded room, field strengths in the relatively small 40 x 40 cm test area differ by up to 40 dB. In both the unloaded and partially loaded shielded room field mapping experiments, the electric field polarization aligned vertically with the transmitting antenna below 90 MHz. However, at the higher frequencies, polarizations and field strengths were dominated by resonant modes inside the room, and varied with

frequency. Using a different absorber configuration in the partially loaded shielded room could give better field uniformity by reducing some of these resonant modes. The large spatial field variations make the unloaded shielded room undesirable for immunity testing because there would be practically no relation between EUT response and a well known field strength. Figure 7 shows that net power to the transmitting antenna can change significantly when the EUT perturbs the test zone. In the partially loaded shielded room, the difference in perturbed minus unperturbed net power varies by up to 4 dB. In the anechoic chamber, net power to the transmit antenna remains within 0.1 dB for most frequencies. This demonstrates that antenna radiation efficiency is more affected by reflections from walls than by loading due to the presence of the EUT in the near field of the transmitting antenna. Perturbed field strengths around the EUT were measured in the anechoic chamber. Figure 8 shows the perturbed field strengths at probe positions 1 , 3 , 4 , 4 , 7 and 9 . Compared to the unperturbed case, field strengths were generally lower by about 2 dB. Nearfield effects still can be seen by the difference in field strengths at probe locations closer to the transmit antenna as compared to those positions farther away. Anechoic chamber results which demonstrate system linearity are shown in figure 9 . EUT responses were measured using reference fields of 3.1, 10, and 31.6 V/m (10, 20 and 30 dBV/m, respectively). Both the current probe responses and the directly measured EUT responses were linear to within 0 . 4 dB. This linearity measured in the anechoic chamber includes the field generation and response detection systems.

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Error Analysis Used in conjunction with an anechoic chamber, this immunity test system has a measurement uncertainty of approximately 0 . 4 dB and a systematic uncertainty of approximately 3 dB. Measurement uncertainty is determined primarily by system linearity and repeatability. Field strength repeatability is approximately 0.2 dB. Repeatability of the response detection system is about 0.2 dB. System linearity has been shown to be better than 0 . 4 dB over a 20 dB range. The system linearity test combined both field strength and response detection repeatabilities into one test to show the overall measurement uncertainty of the system The systematic uncertainty is determined primarily by field strength variations in the test zone. This was approximately 3 dB for the vertical antenna orientation. Better uncertainty could be achieved by moving the test zone into the far field of the antenna where the fields are more uniform. A systematic error which is difficult to quantify is the uncertainty in the EUT response measuring system due to cable losses and mismatches. The current probe is calibrated with the cable it uses during the experiment to account for mismatches, standing waves and cable losses. The systematic uncertainty in the current probe calibration is approximately the same as the measurement repeatability of the calibrated spectrum analyzer, about 0.1 dB. However, the EUT response, measured by a coaxial cable connected directly to the EUT, potentially has large mismatches at the EUT connector and uncompensated cable losses. This fact could explain why the current probe and EUT response signatures were not identical.

Reference field strength repeatability improves dramatically as more absorber is introduced to the room. In the unloaded shielded room reference field strength repeatability was within 3 dB at all frequencies. Repeatability of the reference field in the partially loaded shielded room improved to within 2 dB. In the anechoic chamber, field strength repeatability at the reference position was within 0.2 dB . Summary The capability of an automated fie1.d generation and immunity test system has been demonstrated. A desired field strength can be quickly generated at a specified point in space for many frequencies. Field mapping of a desired test zone helps estimate the uncertainty values of unperturbed field strength and polarization uniformity. Field mapping also allows measurement of perturbed field distributions. Measuring net power to the transmitting antenna helps to check for antenna loading due to the presence of an EUT. Two radiated respo:ises of an EUT may be measured using current probes or other methods. Automating radiated immunity tests saves a great deal of time because the bookkeeping necessary to assure proper testing becomes easy. If such a test were performed manually, the process of setting the frequency and power level, measuring the probe and EUT outputs and applying calibration corrections would take many hours and be prone to errors. Fifty frequencies can be tested in about twenty minutes using computer control.

Use of the anechoic chamber allows generation of more-uniform fields for immunity tests than either the unloaded or the partially loaded shielded room. Although the 50 to 200 MHz frequency range tested here was well below the specified limit for normal use of the RF absorber, adequate attenuation was achieved in the anechoic chamber to give well behaved fields uniform to within 3 dB. Better field uniformity could be achieved in the anechoic chamber by moving the test zone out of the near field of the transmitting antenna. In the unloaded shielded room, field strengths on a relatively small 40 x 40 cm test area varied up to 40 dB. In partially loaded shielded room experiments, field strength variability was reduced to 20 dB using 28 pieces of 0.66-meter absorber placed on opposite walls. This may not be the optimum placement for the absorber, and better field uniformity might be achieved with a different absorber configuration. Two important conclusions can be made. The first is that the lowest usable frequency for radiated immunity tests in an anechoic chamber can be much lower than the recommended absorber cutoff frequency. This permits effective immunity testing in the frequency gap between TEM cells at the lower frequencies, and anechoic and reverberating chambers at the higher frequencies. The second conclusion is that the partially loaded shielded room may be a viable immunity test facility, as long as enough absorber is used to bring field variations within tolerable limits. Obviously, the fields in the partially loaded shielded room will not be as uniform as in an anechoic chamber, s o tolerances in systematic uncertainty would have to be relaxed for measurements made in the partially loaded shielded room. Acknowledgements The author would like to thank John W. Adams for the opportunity to work on this project; Mark T. Ma and Perry F. Wilson for illucidating analysis, discussion and guidance; Galen H. Koepke for the software used to operate the automated probe system; andMotohisa Kanda forhis critical comments and support.

References Crawford, M.L. and Workman, J.L. "Using a TEM Cell for EMC Measurements of Electronic Equipment," Nat'l. Bur. Stds. (U.S.) NBS Tech Note 1013; July 1981. Tsaliovich, A. "Evaluation of RF Anechoic Room Absorbers in the 30-1000 M H z Range," IEEE Int'l Symp. Electromagn. Compat., September 1986. FitzGerrell, R.G. "Using Free-Space Transmission Loss for Evaluating Anechoic Chamber Performance," IEEE Trans. Electromagn. Compat., Vol. EMC-24, NO. 3, pp 356-358,August 1982. Kanda, M. and Wyss, J.C. "Evaluation of Off-Axis Measurements Performed in an Anechoic Chamber, " Nat'l. Bur. Stds. (U.S.) NBS Tech Note 1305; October 1986. Yaghjian, A.D. "Approximate Formulas for the Far Fields and Gain of Open-ended Waveguide," Nat'l. Bur. Stds. (U.S.) NBSIR 83-1689, 34 pages; May 1983. Stuckey, C.W., Free, W.R. and Robertson, D.W., "Preliminary Interpretation of Near-field Effects on Measurement Accuracy in Shielded Enclosures, '' IEEE-EMC Symp. Record, pp 119-127, June 1969, Asbury Park, NJ. Krstansky, J.J. and Standley, R.D. "Theory of RFI Measurements in Shielded Enclosures," 8th Annual IEEE Symp. on EMC, 5 pages, January 1966, San Francisco, CA. Crawford, M.L. and Koepke, G.H. "Design, Evaluation and Use of a Reverberating Chamber for Performing Electromagnetic Susceptibility/Vulnerability Measurements," Nat'l. Bur. Stds. (U.S.) NBS Tech Note 1092; April 1986. Bensema, W.D., Koepke, G.H., and Medley, H.W. "Handbook for Operation and Maintenance of an NBS Multisensor Automated EM Field Measurement System," Nat'l. Bur. Stds. (U.S.) NBSIR 83-3056; October 1986.

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