A New Tunable Damped Sine-like Waveform Generator For IEMI Applications

An experimental generator is presented, which can produce a damped sine-like current waveform for intentional electromagnetic interference (IEMI) studies. The generator is based on an air-filled parallel plate transmission line and is capable of generating an electric field strength in the skilled technical category of IEC61000-4-36 standard. Compared to available generators in this category, the proposed generator is simpler yet more versatile in terms of controlling the pulse amplitude; it can generate a field strength from 0 to ~230 kV/m between its plates, with a 34-kV charge voltage. The operating frequency can also be changed by altering the length of the transmission line. A circuit model is created for the setup to simulate the current waveform. The simulated and measured current waveforms are in agreement.