Electromagnetic environments - Phenomena, classification, compatibility and immunity levels

Knowledge of electromagnetic environments existing at locations where equipment is intended to be operated is an essential precondition for the achievement of electromagnetic compatibility. The necessity of such a knowledge results from the fact that suitable immunity requirements can be concluded from corresponding data regarding the electromagnetic environment. This information should include the type as well as the characteristics of electromagnetic phenomena occurring at those locations. Appropriate information can be obtained by various approaches, such as site surveys or technical assessments accompanied by evaluations of technical literature. It is obvious that the description of a general electromagnetic environment should consider a multitude of phenomena having a broad spectrum of parameters. However, in many cases such a general description is not helpful because it would imply that immunity against all such phenomena has to be taken into consideration. A more practical approach consists in introducing a classification scheme which gives a correlation between locations and the electromagnetic phenomena existing there. This concept forms the basis of the EMC publication IEC 61000-2-5. Because of continuous change of existing technologies and introduction of new ones, electromagnetic environments in a certain respect change fundamentally. This is very obvious in case of all the recently introduced radio and communication services with the generation of electromagnetic fields in the frequency range above 1 GHz. Hence the need arises to monitor continuously electromagnetic environment and to adapt its description. Such an adaptation is currently being done by a working group of IEC TC 77. The results of its work will be the object of the next edition of IEC 61000-2-5. The present status as well as expected changes are discussed in this paper.