Worst Case and Statistics of Waveforms Involved in Wideband Intentional Electromagnetic Attacks

This work is concerned with the assessment of radiated susceptibility of a victim system subject to wideband, intentional electromagnetic interference. It is shown that the high-power electromagnetic (HPEM) pulses giving rise to worst-case interference, according to predefined susceptibility criteria, can be readily determined thanks to a reciprocity-based approach. Particularly, for a specified bandwidth and energy density, the worst-case HPEM pulse waveform maximizing the voltage peak induced across an electric port is found by solving an optimization problem. The solution requires a single full-wave simulation of the victim system, treated as an unintentional radiator, to find its input impedance and radiation pattern. A repeated-run analysis involving limited computational burden allows obtaining the statistics of the worst-case HPEM signal for random incidence and polarization. In order to exemplify the proposed theory and results, the case of a hyperband pulse impinging onto a system composed of two units interconnected by a wiring harness is addressed.