Direction Finding Techniques in Reactive Near Field of Impulsive Electromagnetic Noise Source Aiming at Pantograph Arcing Localization

Pantograph arcing is well known to have several detrimental effects, including electromagnetic compatibility issues. In this paper, we proposed to use direction finding techniques utilizing only two magnetic field components to determine the location of the arcing occurrence independent of weather conditions and with low computational load. Two techniques suitable for impulsive electromagnetic noise in reactive near field are presented. One is well known in the literature and another, which is based on the absolute value of the Poynting vector, is proposed here for the first time. Experiments with an electrostatic discharge gun in a semi-anechoic chamber were used to validate the new technique and to estimate the accuracy of both for pantograph arcing localization.