Aerospace, Military and Defence
and the filter enclosures are designed to make maintenance and replacement of these devices easy, should the need arise.
HEMP filters
A sub-category of EMP, High-altitude ElectroMagnetic Pulse (HEMP) filters are there to safeguard equipment systems against the devastating effects of nuclear blasts high in the atmosphere. The EMP caused by such an
event could knock out military computer and communications networks as well as civil and commercial infrastructure.
For example, the intense electromagnetic pulse created by a nuclear blast more than 25 miles up could disable, damage or destroy electrical power supply networks, unprotected items of electrical equipment and electrical controls for key service industries over a wide area of the Earth’s surface. Any equipment
Vehicle-mounted container for RAF datacomms system
containing microchips would be particularly vulnerable and would be damaged or destroyed in a fraction of a second. A solar flare or geomagnetic storm, over which we have no control but which will inevitably happen from time to time, could produce a similar catastrophic result.
Tests show that purpose-designed HEMP power filters are far more effective than adapted EMI catalogue filters in terms of performance, size and weight. The latest HEMP specifications MIL-STD 188-125 Parts 1 and 2 and DEF STAN 59-188 have no stated insertion loss requirement, but it is accepted that the value should be 20dB at 10kHz rising to 80dB in the frequency range 10MHz to 1GHz, in order not to compromise the required shielding effectiveness.
The multiplicity of applications, specifications and conditions for TEMPEST, EMP and HEMP installation filters point towards few manufacturers in the world. One who offers thousands of designs, with 97 years’ experience, and provides EMC and EMP solutions for the defence industries, is MPE Ltd, an independent British company operating out of a 40,000 sq ft engineering facility at Knowsley, Liverpool. If standard,
CIE-MAR22-DATA MODUL:CIE-MAR22-DATA MODUL 22/03/2022 12:06 Page 1
MPE TEMPEST EMI equipment filter
high-performance COTS designs do not fit the bill in all respects, then MPE will customise its filter products to suit the parameters of the application.
In the final analysis, there is an increasing need for tactical shelters with the introduction into theatres of war of ever more advanced C4ISTAR facilities, and with that comes the necessity for sophisticated EMC and EMP filtering to safeguard their vulnerable – and vital – electronics.
www.mpe.co.uk
www.cieonline.co.uk
Components in Electronics
March 2022 13
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