Prediction of PCB Field Emissions in Antenna Measurements with an Accelerated Current Reconstruction Method Using Near-Field Data

Estimating the field emission of printed circuit boards (PCBs) early in the development process helps to ensure compliance with limit values in final antenna measurements, to initiate necessary redesign processes and to keep costs low. For this purpose, the use of near-field data is very promising. However, there are many approaches to evaluate near-field data. The current reconstruction method is particularly interesting because it determines physical information of an investigated PCB, e.g., termination impedances of traces, which helps in a precise analysis of critical field sources and their suppression. In this paper, an extension of the current reconstruction method is presented that reduces the computation time without compromising the reconstruction quality. This makes the method applicable to more complex structures. Even for a simple structure, computational time reductions of over 90% are obtained. In addition, the calculated field emission based on the reconstruction results is compared with the results of an antenna measurement. A predominantly good agreement between the predicted and the measured field strength is shown.