Assessment of the robustness of commercial data communication interfaces to a military EMI environment

This paper presents tests carried out on 600 Mbps LVDS (low-voltage differential signaling), 100 BaseT and 1,000 BaseT communication links, investigating their performance at the presence of electromagnetic interference representative of the environment characteristic of military airborne platforms, per MIL-STD-461E, methods RS103 and CS114/115/116. Results of the tests have shown that in the original configurations all types of communication links failed all tests. With the addition of an external overall braid (additional to the existing shield on the standard cables) results were significantly improved and in all but the 1,000 BaseT, all susceptibility tests were completed successfully. The failure in the 100/1,000 BaseT can probably be attributed to saturation of the magnetics in the twisted pair interface of the boards.