Measurement of conducted electromagnetic emissions in PWM motor drive systems without the need for an LISN

This paper presents a technique for measuring the conducted electromagnetic emissions produced by pulse-width modulated (PWM) inverter induction motor drive systems. The method does not require an artificial line-impedance stabilizing network (LISN) but does, however, allow the emission levels to be calculated as if an LISN were present. Testing can be performed when an LISN is either unavailable, prohibitively expensive, or impractical to include in the supply. This is often the case for large drive systems or for systems already installed in the field. A normal RF voltage probe and a spectrum analyzer are used to measure the spectra of the common-mode and differential-mode excitation sources due to the inverter switching. Line inductors for high-frequency (HF) isolation are required for some of the tests, but the cost and complexity of these compared to an LISN is low. Common-mode and differential-mode Thevenin equivalent circuits are then derived from measured impedances. The emissions for any defined supply impedance (including an LISN) can then be determined. A laboratory test on a 15 kW PWM drive system is carried out to verify the accuracy and effectiveness of the proposed method.