Whitepaper
Improving Throughput in EMC Compliance Testing
This application brief from Keysight Technologies addresses the challenge of long test times in Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) compliance testing, which limits throughput for both commercial and military applications. The paper proposes utilizing time-domain scanning as a solution, leveraging high-overlap Fast Fourier Transforms (FFTs) to collect emissions data across multiple resolution bandwidths simultaneously. Results demonstrate that using a Keysight N9038A MXE EMI receiver with time domain scanning can reduce pre-scan times for CISPR 16-2-3:2010 testing in the 30 MHz to 1 GHz range from approximately 10 hours (frequency domain) to under 5 minutes – a 125x improvement. The method remains compliant with standards like CISPR 16-1-1:2010 and MIL-STD-461 while maintaining required dwell times.