Most electromagnetic interference standards specify that measurements of radiated emissions must be performed in the far field (FF), e.g. at an open-area test site or in a semi-anechoic chamber. Since near field (NF) measurements are cheaper, quicker and more flexible compared to FF tests, establishing a correlation between NF and FF data is of great research interest. One strategy to achieve this goal is to find a set of basic radiators comprising electric and magnetic dipoles that generate the same NF as the original source at selected observation points. This set of dipoles, based on the uniqueness theorem, can then be used to predict the FF radiation patterns. The uniqueness theorem requires that electric or magnetic fields are matched on a closed surface with respect to the magnitude and phase. The focus of this thesis is the investigation of FF prediction based on NF magnitude-only data. In this thesis, a robust NF-FF conversion model based on Genetic Algorithms (GAs) is built up to predict the radiation of printed circuit boards (PCBs). This is done by introducing a dipole moment magnitude range pre-selection before the initialisation step of GAs, customising the processes of selection, crossover and mutation for anti-sticking and checking the correlation between NF and FF fitness values. Since the performance of GAs is tightly related to the number of dipoles in the GA model, FF characteristics of generic radiation sources (such as a long wire and a large loop) are analysed using both analytical calculation and source modelling by GAs. For structures with simple FF patterns, if more dipoles than necessary are used, the computational cost of GAs is unnecessarily high. On the other side, for structures with complicated FF patterns, the GA modelling may not be able to well approximate the FF radiation, due to the limitation for GAs to tackle too many unknowns. Therefore the scope of the model applicability is discussed, and a dipole number N, depending on the electrical size of the source, is recommended for GA modelling. By applying GAs to get the equivalent dipole set of a radiating PCB from the magnetic NF magnitudes, NF sampling approaches are investigated in detail, including where to locate NF sampling planes, what plane coverage angle to choose, how many points to observe, what type of data to collect, what dynamic range to allow for the data, and how many planes to choose. Two case studies are presented for predicting the FF radiation of PCBs from magnetic NF magnitude-only observations, and validate the NF sampling approaches in this thesis.

Este trabalho tem por objetivo apresentar uma análise de desempenho e viabilidade da aplicação da antena de van Veen e Bergervoet na determinação de contribuições de fontes de emissão radiada em ambientes eletromagnéticos, considerando-se a faixa de freqüência de 9 kHz a 30 MHz. Como potencial aplicação resultante deste trabalho está a utilização de resultados experimentais na determinação de fontes equivalentes de emissão radiada, aplicáveis em simulações numéricas e diretamente através de cálculo analítico na determinação de campos eletromagnéticos no espaço. Desta forma, o uso dessas fontes em simuladores de ambientes eletromagnéticos poderá contribuir para diminuir as restrições e dificuldades atuais oriundas da avaliação experimental e teórica de ambientes eletromagnéticos diversos, e daquelas relativas a estudos de compatibilidade eletromagnética de sistemas elétricos e eletrônicos, como sistemas embarcados, etc. / The objective of this work is to present is to present the main theoretical aspects and the evaluation of the van Veen and Bergervoet antenna performance, concerning its application to the determination of equivalent radiated emission sources, for the 9 kHz to 30 MHz frequency range. As a potential application, it is assumed the use of the equivalent sources, obtained based on experimental measurements, directly, on simulations of the resulting electromagnetic environments. The application of this methodology, although considered as a simplified one, may contribute to reduce the current experimental and theoretical restrictions and difficulties regarding the electromagnetic compatibility studies of electrical and electronics systems, like the on-board systems etc.

Este trabalho tem por objetivo apresentar uma análise de desempenho e viabilidade da aplicação da antena de van Veen e Bergervoet na determinação de contribuições de fontes de emissão radiada em ambientes eletromagnéticos, considerando-se a faixa de freqüência de 9 kHz a 30 MHz. Como potencial aplicação resultante deste trabalho está a utilização de resultados experimentais na determinação de fontes equivalentes de emissão radiada, aplicáveis em simulações numéricas e diretamente através de cálculo analítico na determinação de campos eletromagnéticos no espaço. Desta forma, o uso dessas fontes em simuladores de ambientes eletromagnéticos poderá contribuir para diminuir as restrições e dificuldades atuais oriundas da avaliação experimental e teórica de ambientes eletromagnéticos diversos, e daquelas relativas a estudos de compatibilidade eletromagnética de sistemas elétricos e eletrônicos, como sistemas embarcados, etc. / The objective of this work is to present is to present the main theoretical aspects and the evaluation of the van Veen and Bergervoet antenna performance, concerning its application to the determination of equivalent radiated emission sources, for the 9 kHz to 30 MHz frequency range. As a potential application, it is assumed the use of the equivalent sources, obtained based on experimental measurements, directly, on simulations of the resulting electromagnetic environments. The application of this methodology, although considered as a simplified one, may contribute to reduce the current experimental and theoretical restrictions and difficulties regarding the electromagnetic compatibility studies of electrical and electronics systems, like the on-board systems etc.