The New EMC Challenges to Design Vehicle with Consumer Electronics Devices

The last ten years have experienced a massive integration of consumer electronics devices in vehicles such as mobile phones, audio and video players, USB devices, and internet access capability. Consumers are now demanding the integration of portable and home devices to vehicle systems transforming it to an extension of the home and office thus providing entertainment and connectivity to both short and long trips

The integration of devices that were not designed or specified to operate in the vehicle environment has imposed challenges to the engineers designing vehicle electronics systems in particular to the EMC engineers. The need to design the subsystems that are completely integrated with the consumer electronics devices and also compliant with the car makers current specifications has proven to be a major issue due to the fact that one of the components, the consumer electronic devices, cannot be controlled. Making the design process extremely complex and in many cases leading to a major restriction or even failure. The objective of this paper is to identify these issues and propose solutions to be integrated in the component and vehicle design process and specification increasing safety and reliability.