Introducing Franz Schlagenhaufer
With this personality profile, I would like to stay in the Asia Pacific Region (IEEE Region 10) and to bring a colleague to your attention whose professional biography is characterized by international activities. The person I would like to introduce is Franz Schlagenhaufer. Members of the IEEE EMC Society might know him as a Distinguished Lecturer on EMC topics and as an organizer of EMC events in Australia. Some might know that his native country is Germany and he tries to be present at the German national EMC conference.
     Franz Schlagenhaufer started his engineering career in Bavaria by studying Electrical Engineering at the Technical University Munich. After graduating with the diploma degree he changed his workplace from Bavaria to the North Sea Coast and joined the Hamburg University of Technology (TU Hamburg-Harburg). He received his Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Hamburg University of Technology in 1994. He stayed for two more years (1994–1996) in Hamburg and worked as the manager of an EMC laboratory. Franz left Hamburg and Germany and joined a small consulting company in Melbourne, Australia as technical manager in 1996. In 2000, after four years in industry, he returned to the academic world as Senior Research Fellow and Associate Professor at The University of Western Australia, Perth. Since 2010, he is with the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) at Curtin University, also in Perth.
     Franz’ first brush with EMC came during his final year project, without him noticing. His topic was measuring very fast transients in SF₆-insulated high voltage switches (transients with rise times as short as 1 ns and amplitudes as high as 700 kV); interference between these transients and the measurement set-up were, not surprisingly, a challenge. Since then, his focus has shifted several times between EMC measurements and numerical modelling and simulation. His Ph.D. project, ‘Coupling of electromagnetic pulses to multi-conductor transmission lines with non-linear terminations’ was based on numerical modelling and simulations, with some measurements thrown in for validation purposes. His time as a Ph.D. student under the supervision of Professor Hermann Singer provided Franz with a solid theoretical knowledge of electromagnetics and numerical modelling.
     His first job after receiving the Ph.D. was to set up and manage an EMC laboratory for the government owned Microelectronic Application Centre Hamburg (MAZ Hamburg GmbH). At the time, Franz knew little about running an EMC test lab, not to mention establishing one from scratch. With the invaluable support of Professor Karl-Heinz Gonschorek, he took on this challenge of selecting and procuring test equipment, familiarising himself with standard test procedures, and the day-to-day business of running a lab. He had also his first brush with quality systems when obtaining formal accreditation from the German Accreditation Council (DAR).

Measurements on a fishing vessel.	Franz Schlagenhaufer relaxing after taking measurements on a fishing vessel.

     A small simulation job for an Australian shipyard, done by one of his EMC engineers, would then have a big impact on his life. The client’s contact person started his own consulting company in Melbourne, Australia, and Franz decided that was a good opportunity for a sea change. Not that he considered moving from Hamburg, Germany to Melbourne, Australia to be a big deal – a much bigger step had been the move from Bavaria to Hamburg. But to leave the safety of a successful lab for the unknown of a small start-up company could be seen as a risk. The next four years, 1996–1999, saw Franz in Melbourne as the technical manager of EMCSI Pty Ltd, where he was involved in EM simulations for Navy projects in Australia, Singapore and Germany. And again EMC regulation caught up with him. Australia had just introduced the EMC Framework, and EMCSI Pty Ltd was to become Australia’s first Competent Body for product assessment.
     During all this time in industry, Franz had kept close contact to the academic world, mainly the Hamburg University of Technology and Dresden University of Technology. By the end of 1999, he felt it was time to return to academia, and the offer of a new position as Senior Research Fellow for EMC at The University of Western Australia in Perth came just at the right time.
     In 2000, he joined the Telecommunications, Electronics and Networking group at The University of Western Australia in Perth, which was later transformed into the Western Australian Telecommunications Research Institute (WATRI). His research topics were the investigation of shielding enclosures, in particular the effect of slots on the shielding effectiveness, the near field/far field conversion of measured data based on genetic algorithms, and assessment procedures for lighting systems. His teaching duties covered electromagnetic theory and EMC, and the supervision of Ph.D. and master students. Besides the academic and research part of his work, he also liked to stay involved with industry, was active in national and international standardisation, and delivered numerous EMC seminars.

Franz Schlagenhaufer giving a talk to the Shanghai EMC Chapter.

     Since 2010, he has found a new task at Curtin University, still in Perth, with the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR). Western Australia has dedicated a large block of land to radio astronomy, the Murchison Radio Astronomy Observatory, about 700 km north-east of Perth, where currently two major telescopes are being built: 36 dish antennas forming the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder project, and the 8192 dipole antennas for the Murchison Widefield Array project. This site is also shortlisted as the potential location of the Square Kilometre Array. ICRAR is one of the institutions supporting these radio astronomy activities, and protection from RF interference is a major concern for sensitive radio telescopes. Derivation of limit values, tailoring of test procedures, and providing the means to perform these tests are important to guarantee that the radio astronomers’ own equipment is not disturbing the radio quietness of the site. Besides EMC problems, a difficulty for Franz, as an EMC engineer, is to understand the language of radio astronomers.
     Franz joined the IEEE in 1994 and is now a senior member. He is serving the IEEE EMC Society as Region 10 Regional Conference Coordinator and has served a two year term as Distinguished Lecturer in 2007/2008, a role that brought him to South America, Eastern Europe and China. He is also active in the Australian EMC Society, has the status of an accredited Inspection Body for EMC (Competent Body) and electromagnetic modelling, and acts occasionally as a technical assessor for NATA, the Australian accreditation body.
     Since graduating from the Technical University Munich more than 20 years ago, Franz has tried to keep a balance between theoretical and practical work. He believes that one can’t trust either simulation or measurement results, if they can’t be interpreted based on electromagnetic theory. He also believes that academics have the right to live in an ivory tower - as long is this tower has doors and windows, and there is some engagement with the ‘real’ world.         EMC