uring the COVID-19 pandemic, the C63 Committee, which has always been closely associated with the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), has continued to meet by using modern video-conferencing capabilities. The last face-to-face meeting of the full C63 Committee was in November of 2019 in Santa Rosa, California when eight Subcommittees, the C63 Steering Committee, and the C63 Main Committee all met in a series of week-long meetings. Since then, there have been four meetings of the C63 Steering Committee and each of our eight Subcommittees have met approximately every quarter. Each of the Committee’s Working Groups (WG) is responsible for one C63 standard, and the WGs have continued to meet remotely on an as-needed basis to continue work on their respective standards.
This article outlines the activities of the C63 Committee in 2020 and 2021. It describes the EMC standards that have been approved recently as American National Standards and outlines the EMC standards that are actively being worked on as American National Standards.
Anticipating a “normal” year for 2020, the C63 Committee and its Subcommittees (as well as some of its WGs) were scheduled to meet for a week in early May 2020. The rise of the COVID-19 threat in the first quarter of 2020 soon destroyed the 2020 face-to-face meeting plan and the backup plan became having the Subcommittees meet remotely during the second quarter of 2020. This was successfully executed, and progress continued on developing new C63 standards and revising current C63 standards. Of course, it helped that the WGs doing the development work on the standards continued to meet as they often had, that is, remotely via teleconferencing capabilities.
The C63 Steering Committee took over a majority of the Main Committee’s administrative activities by meeting quarterly via teleconferencing and then submitting Motions to members of the Main Committee for any important issues requiring the majority approval of the forty-plus members of the Main Committee. This included the approval of several standards and the annual approval of the Scope, Duties (the standards they are responsible for), and Membership of each Subcommittee.
The scenario of meetings performed by the Subcommittees in the second quarter of 2020 was re-used for the third and fourth quarters of 2020 as well as the first quarter of 2021. It is also planned to use the Subcommittee quarterly-meeting approach for the second and third quarters of 2021.
It is anticipated that the Main Committee, the Steering Committee, and the eight Subcommittees of C63 will meet face-to-face this coming November at the IEEE Operations Center in Piscataway, New Jersey. This plan assumes progress continues on suppressing the COVID-19 virus and the opening of the IEEE Operations Center.
- American Association of Laboratory Accreditation (A2LA)
- American Council of Independent Laboratories (ACIL)
- American Radio Relay League (ARRL)
- ANSI-National Accreditation Board (ANAB)
- Apple, Inc.
- Cisco Systems, Inc.
- Dell
- Element Materials Technology
- Ericsson AB
- ETS-Lindgren
- Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
- Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
- Google, LLC
- Hearing Industries Association (HIA)
- IEEE-EMC Society
- Information Technology Industries Council (ITIC)
- Intertek
- ISED-Canada
- Keysight Technologies
- Keystone Compliance
- Laird Connectivity
- Motorola Solutions
- National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
- Nokia Bell Labs
- PCTEST–Engineering Lab
- Qualcomm Technologies
- Rohde & Schwarz
- Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE)
- TCB Council
- TUV Rheinland of North America
- TUV SUD of America
- UL LLC
- U.S. Department of Defense – Joint Spectrum Center
- U.S. Department of Navy – NAVWAR
- Steve Berger
- David Case
- Werner Schaefer
- Dave Zimmerman
- Dan Sigouin
- John Lichtig
- Mits Samoto
- Dan Hoolihan
- Chair–Dan Hoolihan
- Vice-Chair–Dan Sigouin
- Secretaries–Jerry Ramie and Allen Crumm
- Treasurer–Mike Windler
- SC-1—EMC Techniques, Zhong Chen, Chair: Standards include C63.2, C63.4, C63.5, C63.7, C63.23, C63.25.1, C63.25.2, and C63.25.3
- SC-2—E3 Terminology Definitions and Best Practices, Marcus Shellman, Chair: Standards include C63.14 and C63.28
- SC-3—International Standardization, Ross Carlton, Chair: Standards include C63.12
- SC-4—Wireless and ISM Equipment, Bob DeLisi, Chair: Standards include C63.10, C63.26, C63.29, C63.30, and C63.31
- SC-5—Immunity Testing and Measurements, Ed Hare, Chair: Standards include C63.9, C63.15, C63.16, and C63.24
- SC-6—Lab Accreditation/Conformity Assessment, Randy Long, Chair: Standards include C63.34
- SC-7—Spectrum Etiquette, Jason Coder, Chair: Standards include C63.17 and C63.27
- SC-8—Medical Devices EMC Test Methods, Stephen Berger, Chair: Standards include C63.18, C63.19, and C63.33
This standard is the second edition of C63.10. It was published on 29 January 2021. The first edition was published in 2013 and this is a technical revision of that standard. The revised standard is 270 pages long. The C63 Committee has petitioned the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to adopt this revised standard and incorporate it into the FCC Rules as it did for the First Edition. The Chairman of the WG that developed the standard was Jason Nixon. The Abstract of C63.10 is
This is a new standard for the C63 Committee. It was published on 19 March 2021. The Chairman of the WG that handled the standard is Travis Thul. The standard is 268 pages long. The Abstract of C63.30 is:
This is a new standard for the C63 Committee. It was published on 24 March 2021. At the time of publication, David Schaefer was the Acting WG Chair. (Don Heirman, who served as the WG Chair during most of the standard’s development, passed away in October 2020). The standard is 28 pages long. The abstract of C63.24 is:
This standard was Reaffirmed in 2020 and it is active through 2022. The WG Chair of the Reaffirmation was Stephen Berger. The Scope of C63.17 is:
This Standard Guide was reaffirmed on August 20, 2020. The WG Chair on the Reaffirmation was Bob DeLisi. The Abstract of C63.23 is:
The 2019 version of this standard was a revision of ANSI C63.19-2011 which was approved on August 19, 2019. The Chair of the WG that revised the 2011 standard was H. Stephen Berger. The Abstract of C63.19 is:
This Recommended Practice was Reaffirmed in August of 2019. It is a Reaffirmation of ANSI C63.19 – 2014 (which was a Revision of ANSI C63.18-1997). The Chair of the Working Group that reaffirmed the Recommended Practice was H. Stephen Berger. The Abstract of C63.18 is: