New defence standards for EMC performance of suppression components and shielding materials

The paper reviews the standardization requirements of electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) performance of components used to: a) control electromagnetic emissions and b) to protect equipment from the effects of extraneous interference. The reputation of EMC engineering is not improved when the claimed EMC performance of a component, say a filter, is consistently not achieved in practice. The cost of trial and error approaches can be significant for major projects. To provide a solution to this problem, a study was commissioned by the Ministry of Defence, Directorate of Standardization and Safety Policy (DSTAN). DSTAN is the military equivalent to the British Standards Institution (BSI) in the UK and works closely with BSI and its European counterparts at all levels of CENELEC (European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization) and CECC (CENELEC Electronic Components Committee)