Design and development of harmonics and flicker generator (HFG) for electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) application

It is observed that the standards IEC 61000-3-2 and IEC 61000-3-3 do not discuss the calibration methods required to evaluate the performance of a Harmonics and Flicker emission test setup, used for Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) measurements. When the instrument does not have a direct standard procedure, reference data for comparison analysis is required to calibrate/verify any equipment or system. In particular, emission measurement systems in EMC laboratories necessarily require a reference source value to check the performance of the test system periodically. This necessitates the design and development of a Harmonics and Flicker Generator to not only identify a known repeatable Harmonics and Flicker value but also to find out the deviation of the test setup. The proposed Harmonics and Flicker Generator is intended to be used for the calibration of Harmonics and Flicker emission test setup and for Inter Laboratory Comparison analysis (ILC) to evaluate the performance capabilities of the EMC test laboratories. This paper discusses the Harmonics and Flicker generator design techniques, schematic circuit, functional description, performance analysis and results.