Uncertainty Analysis and Novel Test Procedures
performed with a Realtime Time-domain EMI
Measurement System
Stephan Braun, Peter Russer
Technische Universität München, Lehrstuhl für Hochfrequenztechnik, München, Germany
stephan.braun@tum.de, russer@tum.de
Abstract— Time-domain EMI Measurement Systems allow to
reduce the measurement time by several orders of magnitude.
In this paper novel test procedures for radiated emission mea-
surements based on a realtime time-domain emi measurement
system are presented. Those test procedures take advantage of
the parallel calculation of the spectrum at several thousand
frequency bins. By a full maximization procedure full automated
measurements can be performed. By an enhanced pre- and final
scan a test procedure is presented that reduces test time by at
least one order of magnitude. The proposed test reduces the
critical parameters that have to be selected by the operator.
Measurements have been performed in the frequency range
30 MHz - 1 GHz and compared with the results obtained by an
EMI receiver. The long term stability of the emission of a brush
motor is investigated. A measurement uncertainty analysis based
on a reliable statistic of 200000 quasipeak values. The standard
deviation as well as the histogram of the probability density
function is calculated and evaluated.
I. I NTRODUCTION
Traditionally emission measurements are carried out by emi
receivers operating in frequency domain. During the last years
reasearch has been performed on time-domain emi measure-
ment systems [1]. It has been shown that by a multiresolution
EMI measurement system sufficient high dynamic range is
achieved [2], [3]. By real-time implementation of the digital
signal processing on field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs)
the measurement time for a single scan has been reduced by
a factor of 2000 [1]. Single transients can be evaluated by
the time-domain emi measurement system. A joint taskforce
between CISPR/A and CISPR/D is formed to discuss the
extension of CISPR 16-1-1, CISPR 16-2 and CISPR 16-3
to the time-domain emi measurement method that use the
short-time fast Fourier transform for the determination of the
spectrum. It has been shown in publications that one large
benefit of the time-domain emi measurements is the reduction
of the measurement time.
An important task is the implementation and investigation
of test procedures for emission measurements that benefit from
the advantages of the short measurement time of a single
scan as well as further analysis methods. In the following
the existing conventional test procedure based on a pre- and
final scan is presented. Novel measurement procedures based
on time-domain emi measurements are discussed. A novel full
maximization method is introduced for full automation and an
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enhanced pre- and final measurement is proposed that reduces
the test time by at least on order of magnitude.
II. T IME -D OMAIN EMI M EASUREMENT S YSTEM
By a time-domain EMI (TDEMI) measurement system the
input signal is digitized by an analog-to-digital converter
(ADC) system. Spectral estimation is performed by the fast
Fourier transform (FFT). The block diagram of a multireso-
lution TDEMI measurement system is shown in Fig. 1. The
Multiresolution TDEMI Measurement System
Ultra broadband
Antenna LP
Floating Digital
Amplitude
Point Signal
Spectrum
ADC Processing
LISN
Fig. 1. Multiresolution Time Domain EMI Measurement System
EMI signal is received via an ultra broadband antenna [4]. By
a multiresolution Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC) system
a floating point analog-to-digital conversion is performed [3].
The measured and digitized EMI signal is processed via digital
signal processing and the amplitude spectrum is displayed.
The operation of a real-time operating multiresolution time-
domain EMI measurement system has already been presented
in [1]. It has been shown that for frequency scan in the range
30 MHz - 1 GHz with a step of 50 kHz a reduction of the
measurement time of a factor of 2000 has been achieved.
A. Fast Fourier Transform
Digital spectral estimation is performed via the Discrete
Fourier Transform (DFT). Algorithms for DFT computations
that exploit symmetry and repetition properties of the DFT
are defined as FFT. The DFT formulation considers periodic
repetition of the time-domain signal and is given as follows:


N −1
−j2πkn
X[k] = x[n]e N (1)
n=0
B. Short Time Fast Fourier Transform
By the STFFT a spectrogramm is calculated. This spec-
trogram shows a disctretization in frequency and time. The
resolution in frequency is described by the bin-width
f .
The resolution in time is described by a time step TsBB . The
inverse of the time-step is called baseband sampling frequency
fsbb . The STFFT calculates as follows:
−1


N
−j2πkn
X[t, k] = x[n + t]w[n]e N (2)
n=0
where w[n] is a gaussian window function that models the
IF-filter of an EMI receiver [5]. The relation of the baseband
sampling frequency fsbb and the bin-width
f describes the
overlap factor of the STFFT. The discretization in time-domain
has to be high enough to fulfill the Nyquist criterion.
C. Hardware Implementation
In Fig. 2 a picture of the analog-to-digital converter system
is shown. Three 10 bit 2.2 GS/s ADCs process three amplitude
resolution in the multiresolution system. The reconstruction
and error correction as well as the realtime spectral calculation
is performed on FPGAs [1]. The current measurement system
Fig. 2. Analog-to-Digital Converter System
can perform the emission measurement in the peak, average,
RMS and quasipeak detector mode. Measurements in the
frequency range 30 MHz - 1 GHz as described by CISPR 22
with a 50 kHz step are performed by a factor of 1000
faster than by a conventional system. Thus for a full scan
in quasipeak detector mode the time for the measurement at
20000 frequencies is about 1 minute.
III. T RADITIONAL M EASUREMENT P ROCEDURE
Procedures to reduce the test time of a device under test
have been described in [6]. The procedure reduces the total test
time for frequency domain measurement systems. The main
objective of this procedure is the reduction of frequency bins,
where an accurate measurement in the final detector mode
with the final dwell time has to be performed. In many cases
the final detector mode is the quasipeak and the dwell time is
several seconds.
A. Pre-Scan
During the pre-scan the frequency bins are detected where
the maximum disturbance is emitted by the device under test.
The measurement is carried out with the peak detector. In
order to get a correct pre-scan the dwell time tdwell has
to be selected longer that the time interval between pulses
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that are emitted by the device under test. Devices may show
strong radiation characteristics. In order to get a reliable
measurement result the pre-scan must be performed at several
heights and angular positions of the device under test. This
will additionally increase the time for the pre-scan. The total
time for the pre-scan can roughly be determined by:
tpre = N tdwell Mpos Mop (3)
An overview of some estimated pre-scan times are given in
table. For measurement we consider typical IT-equipment and
the measurement according to CISPR 22 and for automotive
application we consider a typical transient emitting component
e.g. a motor. We also take into account that the bin-width for
the automotive measurement is 5 kHz. This is typical scan that
is defined as product standard of car manufactures. It can be
IT Automotive
dwell time 0.001 s 0.1 s
N 19400 194000
pre-scan time, one angle (approx) 19.4 s 5.3 h
TABLE I
C OMPARISON OF THE MEASUREMENT TIME
seen that for the time of the pre-scan during the measurement
of the IT-Equipment just takes 20 s. For the automotive devices
under test the pre-scan time is already several hours. For
both tests additional scans at different heights, angles and
operation modes of the device under test have to performed.
Thus dependent on the device under test the pre-scan may also
increase for the IT-Equipment up to several hours.
After the pre-scan from the obtained spectrum the frequency
bins are selected where the amplitude level of one of spectra
has exceeded a certain threshold level. Typically after the pre-
scan the number of frequencies that is measured afterwards is
reduced to number of about 20.
B. Final-Scan and Maximization
At the determined frequency bins the measurement is per-
formed with the detector that is requested by the standard. For
the IT-Equipment case this is the quasipeak detector and for
the given automotive test the average detector has be selected.
For quasipeak the minimum measurement time shall be 1.5 s
and for the average the minimum measurement time shall be
0.1 s. The measurement time of the maximization process can
be estimated around 20 minutes for both cases. Thus the total
test time for the IT-System can be estimated to more than 25
minutes and for automotive system to about 6 h.
C. Measurement uncertainty
The conventional method reduces the number of frequency
bins that shall be measured finally with the appropriate detec-
tor. The following testing parameters will have an effect on
the measurement uncertainty.
• Minimum dwell time during pre-scan tdwell
• Number of pre-scan Mpos
• Operation modes of device under test Mop
 • threshold level Initial scan
The proper selection of the dwell time and the threshold level
has to be performed by experienced operator. tdwell

IV. M EASUREMENT PROCEDURES BASED ON Full

maximization
TIME - DOMAIN EMI MEASUREMENTS peak detector

In the following two novel procedures are discussed that frequencies and
benefit from the great reduction of the measurement time of the positions

time-domain EMI measurement systems. The first procedure Final

performs a maximization of the complete spectrum. During the Measurement
height scan and the angular scan the spectrum is measured and
stored. Fig. 3. enhanced pre- and final scan

A. Full Maximization IT Automotive

dwell time 0.001 s 0.1 s
The full maximization procedure is proposed for a full N 19400 194000
automation of the testing. During the full maximization pro- pre-scan time, one angle (approx) 20 ms 6.4 s
cedure an angular scan as well as a height scan is performed. pre-scan time, 300 positions (approx) 5 min 32 min
Each scan is performed with the final detector mode and TABLE II
the final dwell time. The minimum dwell time is selected C OMPARISON OF THE MEASUREMENT TIME
automatically by a single measurement with a long dwell time
e.g. 20 s.
In order to set up the minimum dwell time an initial mea-
surement in the peak detector mode is proposed. During the The presented procedure reduces in this example the test
measurement the indication of the peak detector is observed. time by a factor of at least 10 for the IT-System as well as
If the indicated value of the peak detector for all measured for the automotive device under test while providing a full
frequencies shall be in steady state with an accuracy of 0.2 dB. automation. The number of critical parameters that affect the
If the observed minimum dwell time is smaller than the measurement uncertainty has been reduced.
minimum detector time the minimum detector time shall be
selected. V. M EASUREMENT U NCERTAINTY
In the following two novel methods are described that allow
B. Enhanced Pre-and Final-Scan to perform an improved measurement uncertainty analysis.
A drawback of the full maximization procedure appears The methods become feasible with measurement systems that
when the minimum dwell time requested by the device under can perform ultra fast measurements like time-domain emi
test is much smaller than the minimum detector observation measurement systems.
time. In the case of stationary signals and the weightening with
the quasipeak the minimum detector observation time would A. Long-term stability analysis
be about 1 s. But the requested dwell time of the device under The objective of the long-term stability analysis is the
test may be several ms. evaluation of the changing of the emission over a longer time.
For such cases an enhanced pre- and final scan is proposed. The emission of a electrical motor for example changes, when
This enhanced pre- and final-scan consists of a full maximiza- the temperature is changing. Due to the short measurement
tion procedure in the peak detector mode. The short dwell time times e.g. the calculation of the emission in the quasipeak
that is requested by the device under test is selected. The dwell detector mode in 1 minute, consecutive measurements can be
time is determined by an initial scan as described in section performed. By this way the longterm stability can be observed
IV-A. even in detector modes that requires a long observation time.
The position of device under test as well as the frequency An example of a long term stability analysis is shown in VI.
bin is stored, if the magnitude exceeds a certain threshold level.
The final measurement is performed at the stored positions and B. Standard deviation
frequency bins. The flow chart of the procedure is shown in For the characterization of the measurement uncertainty the
Fig 3. probability distribution as well as the standard deviation are
In table II an overview of the expected measurement time used [7]. The standard deviation σ of a data vector v is
is shown. For the pre-scan at 300 positions the limited speed described by [8] :
of the turntable is considered. The final measurement time 

strongly depends on the device under test. The final measure-  1
N

ment will go faster than the conventional final scan, because σ =  (vi − < v >)2 . (4)
N − 1 i=1
the measurement is only performed at the stored positions.
An estimated value for typical device under test is 5 min. A practical example is shown in VI.

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VI. M EASUREMENTS AND U NCERTAINTY A NALYSIS
The emission measurement of a brush motor has been
performed in the frequency range 30 MHz - 1 GHz. The
frequency step for the TDEMI measurement system has been
30 kHz. For the EMI receiver a frequency step of 2 MHz was
selected. The result of the measurement is shown in Fig. 4. An
45
40
E−Field Strength / dBµV/m
35
30
25
20
15
10
100 200 300 400 500 600 700
Frequency / MHz
Fig. 4. Emission of a Hand Held Mixer
excellent agreement between both measurements is shown.
A stability and statistical measurement uncertainty analysis
is performed. A hand held mixer has been used. In a first
investigation the measurement has been repeated ten times
with the time-domain EMI measurement system. The objective
of this procedure is to investigate the long term stability of the
emission of a device under test. Each emission measurement
was performed with the peak detector mode. The dwell time
has been 0.5 s. The result is shown in Fig 5. It can be seen that
Fig. 5. long term stability of emission of a hand held mixer
the emission varies over the time. But a tendency to drifting of
the maxima into a certain direction cannot be observed during
this 60 s of operation.
In a further measurement the emission of an electronically
regulated electrical motor is investigated. Ten quasi-peak mea-
surements have been performed. A total number of about
200000 measurement points is evaluated.
The histogram of the deviation from then mean spectrum of
the ten measurements is shown in Fig. 6. It is shown that the
distribution is a gaussian distribution. Thermal noise generates
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18000
16000
14000
12000
10000
H[err]
8000
6000
TDEMI QP 4000
ESCS30 QP
2000
0
−4 −2 0 2 4
err / dB
Fig. 6. histogramm of deviation from the mean spectrum
a Raleigh distribution [9]. In this measurement we observe
a gaussian distribution in a logarithmic scale. Thus we can
800 900 conclude that the measurement uncertainty is not preliminary
originating from thermal noise as in the case of a low signal-
to-noise ratio. The standard deviation is calculated according
to (4) and we obtain: σ = 0.7 dB.
VII. C ONCLUSION
In this paper two novel test procedures have been in-
troduced for time-domain emi measurement systems. They
take advantage of the parallel calculation of several thousand
frequency bins. The introduced measurement procedures re-
duce the number of uncertainty parameters and are suitable
for full automation. A long term stability analysis has been
introduced. By a realiable statistic of 200000 quasipeak values
the propability distribution as well as the standard deviation
has been calculated and evaluated.
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tion time-domain emi measurement system that fulfils cispr 16-1,” in
2005 IEEE International Symposium On Electromagnetic Compatibility,
Chicago, USA, pp. 388–393, 2005.
[3] S. Braun and P. Russer, “A Low-Noise Multiresolution High-Dynamic
Ultra-Broad-Band Time-Domain EMI Measurement System,” IEEE
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3363, Nov 2005.
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Santa Clara, USA, vol. 3, pp. 919–924, Aug. 2004.
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