From left to right: Two of the co-authors Farhad Rachidi (EPFL) and Marcos Rubinstein (HEIG-VD) receiving this award in Washington DC from Frank Sabath, the President of the IEEE Electromagnetic Compatibility Society.
A Paper by the Electromagnetic Compatibility Lab and the Distributed Energy Systems Laboratory of EPFL received the 2017 Best IEEE Transactions on Electromagnetic Compatibility Award. The award was given during the 2017 IEEE Symposium on Electromagnetic Compatibility and Signal and Power Integrity, which took place in August in Washington DC.
The paper presents a theoretical analysis of the propagation effects of lightning electromagnetic fields over a mountainous terrain. The analysis is supported by experimental observations consisting of simultaneous records of lightning currents and electric fields associated with upward negative lightning flashes to the instrumented Säntis tower in Switzerland. The obtained results can be used to improve the performance of lightning location systems in detecting and locating lightning flashes in mountainous areas.
The paper has been selected as the top paper out of more than 300 papers published in the IEEE Transactions on EMC in 2016.