Prediction of parasitic components in an automotive environment

The amount of electrical loads and the complexity of the electric system in a vehicle is increasing at the same time as the allowed development time is decreasing. Possibilities to predict the electromagnetic behaviour is therefore of great importance. This paper addresses the problems of low frequency electromagnetic crosstalk between cables in a harness. Analytical expressions for estimation of the parasitic inductances and capacitances are employed and compared to measured as well as simulated results. The results show that an analytical calculation of the parameters is a good way to start to analyse the crosstalk since the parameter values agree well with both the simulated and measured values. When the values for the parasitic components are estimated, they can be employed in circuit simulations in order to investigate the sensitivity to crosstalk for different conductor layouts.