Measurement of RF Emissions from Electrostatic Discharges between Charged Insulators

This paper focuses on the measurement of the electromagnetic radiation from electrostatic discharges between charged insulators that are electrostatically coupled to conductors. To observe this phenomenon in a controlled environment, various basic experimental setups were assembled in a semianechoic chamber, consisting of a metal antenna, a table tennis ball, and a dielectric plane positioned on a ground plane. We provide a phenomenological discussion and present the obtained results. Finally, we propose an equivalent circuit that is capable of representing the investigated phenomenon, and we report results of further test setups that aim at confirming some of our conjectures.