Coupling factor determination in the control of unintentionally generated RF fields

Radiated emissions and susceptibility requirements imposed in bands where intentional RF reception or transmission does not occur is problematical. It is often desired to compare radiated emissions with radiated susceptibility performance to assess system level compatibility. For reasons purely theoretical and because of practical measurement limitations, this is not realistic. McCollum and Clark (see IEEE International Symposium on Electromagnetic Compatibility, Austin, TX, 1997) proposed a limit and test method that provided a direct comparison of radiated emissions and radiated susceptibility performance in those cases where only unintentional emissions and reception are of interest (nontunable electronics). This test method, referred to as bulk current emissions (BCE) testing, and its associated limit is a complimentary test method to bulk current injection testing and radiated susceptibility testing. Previous work utilized victim and culprit circuits with low common-mode loop impedance. Forward work identified in this publication was to determine how different loop impedance on culprit and victim circuits affected cable-to-cable coupling and the corresponding BCE test limit. Cable coupling factors for victim and culprit circuits with different loop impedance are investigated