The View from the Chalkboard – November 2014

Hello everyone, by the time you read this – the Fall 2014 semester at most academic institutions will be well underway and I thought this would be a good time report on of some of the printed books (yes – PRINTED) on EMC (and/or related to EMC topics) that are used in academic settings for EMC education.

The intention of this month’s “View from the Chalkboard” is to highlight some of the books that have been found to be useful in the teaching of EMC, to help you identify suitable EMC resources for your classes (and even if you are not teaching formal EMC courses, it is hope that this will highlight books that you may find useful in your work in everyday work EMC).

It is hoped that the information here will provide you with insight as you either plan your upcoming curriculum or want to build up your own personal library of reference material.

Recently, as Chair of the IEEE Electromagnetic Compatibility Society (EMCS) Education and Student Activities Committee (ESAC), I had an opportunity to discuss this topic with my colleagues who are members of ESAC and they wanted to share with you their observations and thoughts about the resources they use. In addition to my comments in this article, others who provided input for are: Professor Arturo Mediano, of Spain, Mr. Matthew Juszczyk of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. While Professor Mediano and I are providing an EMC instructor perspective, Mr. Juszczyk brings an interesting approach and insight as a student who had a formal course in EMC at Kettering University (in Flint, Michigan).

With that introduction – let’s see what books are used in EMC education.

Professor Arturo Mediano

I have a nice course on EMC for electronic engineers in my University. I teach the fundamentals especially from the designer point of view, we solve examples in class, we have two visits to EMC labs external to the University and finally the students take a product and a full analysis of EMC is done on it.

You know we have many EMI/EMC books. Really we spent a lot of time with application notes, datasheets, etc, so I have selected two books for the course (as a reference), not to follow exactly day by day. They are:

1. Henry W. Ott, Electromagnetic Compatibility Engineering; Ed. John Wiley & Sons; 2009; ISBN-13: 978-0470189306

Do you think this first book could be neglected in any EMC course? This is the best book I know for any engineer interested in EMI/EMC fundamentals. The structure is excellent and any subject is clearly explained.

2. Tim Williams; EMC for Product Designers; Ed. Newnes; 2006; ISBN-13: 978-0750681704

This book is nice for me because the EMC fundamentals (regulations and tests) are explained in a very understandable style followed by a good EMI approach for designers. I feel this an excellent complement to Henry Ott’s book.

Arturo Mediano received both his M.Sc. (90) and Ph. D. (97) in Electrical Engineering from the University of Zaragoza, Spain where he has held a teaching professorship in EMI/EMC/RF since 1992. He is author/co-author for many publications and patents and a frequent speaker in the most important symposiums and conferences related to RF/EMC. Arturo is Senior Member of the IEEE, member of the EMC Society (ESAC Committee), and member (Chair since 2013) of the MTT-17 (HF/VHF/UHF technology) Technical Committee of the Microwave Theory and Techniques Society.

Mr. Matthew Juszczyk

Kenneth Kaiser’s Electromagnetic Compatibility Handbook; CRC Press, First edition 2004, ISBN:  978-0849320873, contains over 2500 pages of detailed content covering a vast array of EMC concepts. The book is written in a non-traditional fashion where each section poses a question to the reader and cites original sources to demonstrate the answer. This approach amounts to a highly practical reference guide for EMC engineers that is strongly tied to academic concepts. Kaiser has gone at length to develop numerous reference tables showing both the simplest and most complicated of derivations for unique situations. For example, there are sixty-one derivations for the characteristic impedance of varying transmission line cross-sections. All modeling in the book was written using Mathcad and each of the scripts is available for free on the textbook’s website. While perhaps not the most traditional choice for an undergraduate electromagnetic fields course, this textbook can serve as a fine addition to augment a senior or graduate level EMC course.

Matt Juszczyk is a Principal EMC Engineer at Rockwell Collins in Cedar Rapids. He earned his BSEE at Kettering University in 2007 and his MSEE from Iowa State University in 2012. He is an adjunct instructor at a local college, and he primarily teaches in the mathematics department.

Mark’s Picks

Finally, my selection of books on EMC: I teach two courses on EMC, an undergraduate course typically in the Fall semesters, and a graduate level course in the Winter semesters. Due to the nature of each course (the undgraduate course has students that will be receiving their engineering degree soon, and the graduate course students are more deeply involved in advance studies), I use two different books for each course.

For the undergraduate course, I use Henry Ott’s Electromagnetic Compatibility Engineering book (as referenced by Professor Mediano). The book is exceptionally well suited to prepare the students in the fundamentals of EMC, and through the topics covered at end of chapter problems the students can relate their experiences in “real world” work or previous classroom topics to look at those from an EMC standpoint.

For the graduate course, I use Dr. Clayton Paul’s book Introduction to Electromagnetic Compatibility, ISBN 978-0471755005, John Wiley and Sons, 2006, since the students in the graduate program are well versed in advanced mathematics and physics that Dr. Paul references to explain EMC. Since many of the students are also working full-time engineers, the combination of their day to day experiences and the content of the book explaining EMC as applied to product engineering works well to develop their insight into challenges they face as engineers.

So, I hope this has helped you as you plan your EMC courses, or are looking for resources that have been found to be useful to understand EMC. If you have experiences with other books and publications, I am sure readers of this column would be interested in knowing your thoughts!

Mark Steffka, B.S.E., M.S., is a Lecturer (at the University of Michigan – Dearborn), an Adjunct Professor (at the University of Detroit – Mercy) and an automotive company Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) Technical Specialist. His university experience includes teaching undergraduate, graduate, and professional development courses on EMC, antennas, and electronic communications. His extensive industry background consists of over 30 years’ experience with military and aerospace communications, industrial electronics, and automotive systems.

Mr. Steffka is the author and/or co-author of numerous technical papers and publications on EMC presented at various Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) conferences. He has also written about and has been an invited conference speaker on topics related to effective methods in university engineering education. He is an IEEE member, has served as a technical session chair for SAE and IEEE conferences and has served as an IEEE EMC Society Distinguished Lecturer. He holds a radio communications license issued by the United States’ Federal Communication Commission (FCC) and holds the call sign WW8MS. He may be reached at msteffka@umich.edu.