PhD Defence Hans Schipper | Pleasantly Disturbed | Improving Electromagnetic Shielding (Measurements) by Thinking Outside the (Reverberant) Box

Pleasantly Disturbed | Improving Electromagnetic Shielding (Measurements) by Thinking Outside the (Reverberant) Box

Hans Schipper is a PhD student in the department Radio Systems. (Co)Promotors are prof.dr.ir. F.B.J. Leferink & dr. R. Vogt-Ardatjew from the faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science (EEMCS), University of Twente.

Electromagnetic (EM) shielding is an essential tool in the field of Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC). It is a technique for protecting equipment or cables
from unwanted external electrical and magnetic signals (interference), or the other way around. EM shielding acts as a barrier against the ingress and
egress of EM waves. This often involves using an enclosure (a type of box) in the form of sheet metal, mesh, foil, foam, etc., made of conductive material
such as copper, aluminum, or steel. Knowing the Shielding Effectiveness (SE) of such an enclosure allows for estimating the shielding performance of a shielding solution using this enclosure. Therefore, a dedicated SE measurement setup is required, especially when maximizing its effectiveness, for example, in certain military applications. The real torture chamber for this type of SE measurements is the dual Vibrating Intrinsic Reverberation Chamber (VIRC). The dual VIRC setup will find the weakest link in the shielding chain. The author has written several journal and conference publications on this dual VIRC measurement setup and on evaluation of the EM SE of a Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) 19-inch cabinet partially filled with COTS equipment. These have been published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). The first part of the thesis (chapter 2 and 3) is dedicated to the Dynamic Range (DR) of the dual VIRC SE measurement setup and is based on two published  IEEE journal papers. The second part of the thesis (chapter 4 and 5) describes the evaluation of the SE of a COTS 19-inch cabinet partially filled with COTS equipment, which represents an actual functional cabinet that is used, for example, in a radar
system. This part of the thesis is also based on two published IEEE journal papers.