Classic line from a classic movie, Dirty Harry, who was also in the Enforcer. Frankly I forget which one came first. So who is our enforcer of electromagnetic environmental effects (E3) requirements, specifically for US DoD program?
The requirement to field electromagnetically compatible systems is mandated in DoD Directive 3222.2, “DoD Electromagnetic Environmental Effects (E3) Program.” It’s pretty straightforward about the need for E3 control and defines a wide variety of roles and responsibilities for the implementation of E3 control, but at this point it’s a bit out of date. The current version is dated 8 September 2004, so its going on 10 years old. That can be a lifetime in technical discipline like E3 as many things can and obviously have changed over the last decade in the E3 business. Priorities change, definitions change, organizations change (including people), technology changes causing the electromagnetic environment to change (that’s a biggie!), all contributing to the need for policy to change or at least to be updated. This version of DoDD 3222.3 has seen changes to MIL-STD-461, MIL-STD-464, the creation of MIL-HDBK-240 (HERO Test Methodology), DoD Instruction 4650.01 (DoD Spectrum Use), the disbanding of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Networks and Information Integration (office responsible for E3 and spectrum directives) and a wide variety of other changes.
The bad news is that the draft has been stuck for quite some time in the final signature cycle, hostage to various recent reorganizations and never quite getting high enough on “the list” to actually get promulgated. But there are good people pushing for it and we’re all confident that it’ll be out soon. Then hopefully fielding electromagnetically compatible systems won’t just be a matter of luck ….
– Brian Farmer
