‘Continuing Education’ means professional education that engineers undertake after their academic education, often called ‘continuing professional development’.

The awards ceremony followed a series of successful EMC training courses by Keith in Australia. These are latest in a series of such courses on good, cost-effective EMC, signal integrity (SI) and power integrity (PI) engineering that Keith has delivered worldwide for more than 23 years.

During this period Keith also wrote many articles and guides and presented many conference papers on these topics, including testing techniques and risk managing electromagnetic interference (EMI), which used to be called ‘EMC for Functional Safety’.

It was Keith’s commitment to continuing EMC education for practising engineers that prompted the launch of online resource EMC Standards in 2016.

“A strong understanding and knowledge of EMI and EMC is imperative in modern engineering,” explains Keith. “Designers are always using die-shrunk integrated circuits (ICs) and power switching devices and adding new features to products in a never-ending quest to maintain or grow market share. This generally results in worse SI, PI, emissions and immunity: increasing difficulties in complying with functional specifications and EMC standards; poorer customer experiences, and increased warranty costs.

“Achieving EMC is often left to a small group of EMC experts, after the functional design is complete, sometimes called “throwing it over the wall to the EMC department”. But this has become extremely inefficient because almost every aspect of a modern electronic product has an impact on EMC. To get to market quickly with a successful and profitable product now requires all designers to use good EM engineering. They don’t need to become EMC experts, or know how to test to standards, but they do need to know enough to ensure that their first prototypes are close-enough to their final products to only require minor modifications.

“Unfortunately, practical EM engineering is generally not taught as part of academic engineering courses, at any level, so I have always focussed on helping design engineers and their managers understand – in practical terms – what is required at each stage of the product cycle to avoid real-world problems and reduce financial risks.

“I am very honoured to have been the first person to be presented with this new IEEE award, and will continue to deliver practical education on EMC, SI and PI to engineers worldwide. I hope to deliver this increasingly via my continually-updated training course material on the EMC Standards site.”
 

The event will be held at the offices of Endress + Hauser in Manchester on November 22, 2017 and is targeted at installers, systems integrators and the wider industrial datacomms community. The training course will be delivered by global EMC expert Keith Armstrong, of EMC Standards, and by PROFIBUS and PROFINET expert Peter Thomas, of Control Specialists.

The topics covered include an introduction to electromagnetic interference (EMI) problems in PROFIBUS, PROFINET and similar fieldbus applications, followed by detailed practical EMI-reduction guidance on power distribution systems, galvanic isolation, cable routing, EM zoning, RF bonding, cable shielding, filtering, enclosure shielding and surge/lightning protection.  

"Electromagnetic interference (EMI) is becoming a major problem in modern industrial environments," explained Keith Armstrong. "This is due to the increased use of high-efficiency switching power conversion in DC power supplies, motor drives, HVAC and lighting.

"As we increase the use of automation in sectors such as automotive, food and beverage, packaging and pharmaceuticals, we need to ensure that Fieldbusses such as PROFIBUS and PROFINET continue to operate reliably. This course provides practical techniques for installers, systems integrators and anyone in the wider industrial datacomms community to deal with EMI."

A digital copy of the course material will be provided, and participants will also be able to take away specialist guides developed in collaboration with power quality specialist REO UK, including Good EMC Engineering Practices for Panel Builders, Good EMC Engineering Practices in the Installation of Power Drive Systems and Good EMC Engineering Practices for Fixed Installations.

The course costs £350 + VAT, including refreshments throughout the day and lunch. For more details, or to book a place email Alan at [email protected]. The course is organised by EMC Exhibitions & Training.