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| Kimball Williams (left) shakes hands
with Dr. Kini (right), Chairman of the INCEMIC organizing
committee, congratulating him on a successful Conference while
Oren Hartal (second from left) and Elya Joffe compare notes.
|
EMC India Workshop and
Conference
On December 16-19, 2003 the Indian Society of EMC Engineers held
its EMC Workshop and Conference on Electromagnetic Compatibility
in Chennai, India with participants from the following countries:
Germany, Japan, Switzerland, Israel, China, India and the United
States.
EMC Workshop: December 16 and 17
The Conference was preceded by two days of EMC workshops devoted
to fundamentals of end EMC in electronics and electronic systems.
The workshops were held on the campus of SAMEER, one of the local
EMC test laboratories. I was fortunate enough to attend the EMC
workshops and participated in the opening ceremony. Also representing
the IEEE EMCS BOD was our VP of Symposia and Conferences, Elya
Joffe, who was also one of the workshop lecturers.
This workshop stressed fundamentals of EMC design, and boasted
lecturers from Switzerland, Israel, the United States and India.
The workshop was well attended with 175 participants, which left
standing room only in the SAMEER auditorium. The level of interest
in the participants was evident at breaks when the speakers were
surrounded by students seeking more detailed information, or answers
to questions, such that the speakers really did not have a break
at all!
Attention during the lectures was uniformly intense, with the
only sound evident in the lecture hall being that of the speaker’s
voice. However, the situation was completely different outside
the lecture hall during breaks. Animated discussions on EMC topics
were taking place everywhere I looked as participants compared
their understanding of what they had learned with companions.
There is a strong air of excitement and interest in the subject
here in India.
EMC Conference: December 18 and 19
Elya and I were also able to attend the follow on EMC Conference
held in the Residency Towers Hotel. The conference attracted 277
participants from seven different countries. In addition to two
full days of papers and lectures, the conference hosted nine exhibitors
presenting EMC test equipment and tools for the interest of the
attendees. The exhibit area was one of the most popular sections
of the conference. In fact, it was so crowded that I didn’t
attempt to even walk through until the afternoon of the second
day!
In addition to the two parallel tracks of technical papers, a
section of the conference was devoted to updates on current EMC
standards and test methods with the focus on current European
Community applications. Again, the interest level in all the information
presented here was noticeable, and intense. The Indian EMC community
is very receptive to current information, and this conference
was obviously a welcome supply of that commodity.
I was asked to participate in the closing panel discussion on
the state of EMC from a Global viewpoint. As I listened to the
other panel members, I became aware of a problem that India is
currently facing with the ‘dumping’ of sub-standard
electronic products into the Indian market that would not meet
the EMC and Safety requirements imposed by other countries. One
of the clear calls from this panel discussion was to work toward
establishing legislation to address this issue, and bring it to
fruition by the next Indian EMC Conference.
The next EMC Conference sponsored by the Indian Society of EMC
Engineers is scheduled for December of 2005 in New Delhi, India.
The exact dates have yet to be determined. EMC
