Assessment of FEM simulations in EMC test setups for small aeronautical platforms

Abstract

The rise of fly-by-wire systems together with the utilization of new composite materials make it more and more difficult to assess and guarantee aircraft electromagnetic compatibility (EMC). As a result, the design phase becomes of paramount importance in the aircraft production process. Performing actual EMC tests over different configurations in such a phase would be very costly and time consuming, so reliable computational techniques are being explored in the last years. However, proper validation is needed in order to gain confidence in the results obtained by simulations. In this regard, this paper presents the assessment of a simulation approach based on the finite element method to reproduce typical setups of an EMC test laboratory for small aeronautical platforms. The final test object is based on an unmanned aerial vehicle but, first, a simpler test case is used to tune and assess the simulation approach. Once the approach is both qualitatively and quantitatively validated with measurements, new setups involving the aeronautical specimen are analysed.