At Hardware Pioneers Max 2026, Managing Editor Paige Hookway speaks with Nathan Reeve, EMC Product Specialist at Rohde & Schwarz UK, and Nick Le Bas, Applications Engineer, about the latest trends in EMC testing, power electronics, and the company’s newest measurement solutions.
Reeve began by highlighting a growing shift across the electronics industry as manufacturers increasingly invest in their own pre-compliance EMC testing rather than relying solely on external test laboratories.
“Years ago, people were doing EMC testing in test labs,” he explained. “Now you’re getting a lot more people doing their own in-house testing, which is really advisable if you want to have success in your compliance testing.”
To support this trend, Rohde & Schwarz showcased its EPL EMI Test Receiver, the latest addition to its EMC portfolio. Designed with a modular architecture, the receiver allows engineers to begin with a pre-compliance configuration before upgrading to a full compliance solution as requirements evolve. The system also incorporates FFT technology to accelerate testing alongside real-time debugging tools, including a spectrogram for analysing interference.
Reeve also demonstrated Electra, Rohde & Schwarz’s next-generation EMC software platform. Building on the company’s long-established EMC32 software, Electra is designed to automate EMC testing workflows, helping engineers complete tests more quickly while improving repeatability.
Among the software’s capabilities are multiband emissions measurements, which capture multiple frequency ranges simultaneously, and multicarrier immunity testing, allowing several frequencies to be tested at once rather than sequentially. According to Reeve, these features can significantly reduce overall test times.
Looking beyond EMC, Le Bas discussed the increasing demands being placed on engineers developing next-generation power electronics. As switching frequencies rise and new semiconductor materials enable more compact, efficient designs, accurately measuring high-speed signals has become increasingly challenging.
To address these requirements, Rohde & Schwarz demonstrated its MXO 3 and MXO 5 oscilloscopes. Both platforms feature the company’s high-performance ASIC technology, delivering acquisition rates of up to 4.5 million waveforms per second alongside high-resolution analogue-to-digital conversion for analysing complex power electronics and signal integrity challenges.
Le Bas said the oscilloscopes are particularly well suited to applications requiring fast frequency-domain analysis, with FFT capabilities enabling engineers to debug electromagnetic interference more effectively during product development.
Throughout both demonstrations, the company emphasised its engineering-led approach to product development, explaining that customer feedback plays a central role in shaping both its hardware and software platforms.
Watch the video to learn more about Rohde & Schwarz’s latest EMC testing solutions and oscilloscope technologies showcased at Hardware Pioneers Max 2026.
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