Standard for the Exposure Restrictions for Electromagnetic Fields Approved

The European Committee for Electronic Technical Standards (CENELEC) has approved EN/IEC 62311: 2020, the assessment of electronic/electrical equipment and human exposure restrictions for EM fields from 0 Hz to 300 GHz.

This version of EN / IEC 62311: 2020 was released in January of this year and comes into mandatory effect on July 24th, 2020.

For unintentionally radiators, the conformity assessment for emissions of E or H fields are now to be made according to the highest internal frequency used within the equipment under test, or at which the equipment operates with the following criteria:

  • If the highest internal frequency of the equipment is less than 10 kHz, the assessment should be made up to 400 kHz;
  • If the highest internal frequency of the equipment is less than 108 MHz, the assessment should be made up to 1 GHz;
  • If the highest internal frequency of the equipment is between 108 MHz and 500 MHz, the assessment should be made up to 2 GHz;
  • If the highest internal frequency of the equipment is between 500 MHz and 1 GHz, the assessment should be made up to 5 GHz;
  • If the highest internal frequency of the equipment is above 1 GHz, the assessment should be made up to 5 times the internal frequency or 6 GHz, whichever is greater.

Maximum permissible exposure levels are normally calculated under the assumption that human exposure is from a uniform field.

In the new version, considerations are now made for non-uniform fields through spatial averaging of field strength or power density for points on the human body, or usage of coupling factors for local exposure.

Devices currently undergoing the certification process can directly apply for and use the latest version if they are unaffected by the changes.

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