Evaluation of Electromagnetic Emission from Portable Electronic Devices Using Statistical Analysis

Abstract

It is well known that electromagnetic (EM) emissions from Portable Electronic Devices (PEDs) carried on board aircraft may interfere with avionics systems. Generally, RTCA Document 160F(DO-160F) Section 21 Category M is used to evaluate PED emissions for the devices located in the cabin. The DO-160F requires that emissions be below the category M level. The document specifies guidelines for measuring PED emissions with a few sweeps of a spectrum analyzer, assuming that emissions are radiating continuously. However, recently, PEDs have not been emitting continuous waves but pulse waves to save batteries, which means present measurement method may fail to provide accurate results.

The purpose of this paper is to measure PED emissions properly without any new equipment even if the PED emits pulse waves. We propose a new method for the evaluation of EM emissions following a statistical approach. This enables us to calculate emission probability versus amplitude. The proposed method was applied to evaluate a RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tag, a radio-controlled car, and a rechargeable electric shaver, resulting in a multilateral analysis of these emissions. In the future, this new evaluation method can be an effective tool to estimate the probability of EM interference between PEDs and aircraft.