Improved Just-Before-Test Verification Methods with VNA for Conducted EMC Tests

Conducted emission and conducted immunity tests are major EMC tests which are performed by using LISNs and CDNs respectively in laboratories in accordance with emission standards such as CISPR22 for conducted emission tests and immunity standards such as IEC61000-4-6 for conducted immunity tests. As per the accreditation rules stipulated by IEC17025, every laboratory must perform verifications to ensure the quality and precision of test results by means of just-before-test verifications as just-before-test verifications can detect errors beforehand in the test setup and prevent wrong testing. Although just-before-test verifications are essential for assuring the quality of test results, they are widely omitted by laboratories or inefficient verification methods are employed. There are some existing well-known methods used for verification before conducted emission and immunity tests, however they are not able detect all issues with the setup, which may result in wrong testing. In this work, we first instructively introduce the state of the art verification methods and then propose new modern just-before-test verification methods through the inclusion of network analyzers into the verification process in order to be able to detect issues, including the most insidious ones, with conducted emission and immunity test setups.