System-Level EMI of an Artificial Router System with Multiple Radiators: Prediction and Validation

In a multimodule system, an increase in the number of radiating optical modules will increase the electromagnetic emissions. This article investigates the scaled tendency of the emissions in a router system loaded with hundreds of optical modules. An artificial router mimicking the real system was built to investigate this tendency. A patch antenna array mimics the radiation of the optical modules. It can be excited in in-phase and random-phase configurations. The measurement data verifies the theoretical analysis and the prediction from a statistical method without performing hundreds of different experiments on a real router. Assuming that all radiators are radiating at the same frequency and have similar radiation pattern with random phases, the average of the maximal directivity of the system will saturate if the number of radiators (N) is larger than 14. Furthermore, the average of the maximal electric field radiated will increase following a 10 log10N (dB) tendency