“Do what you do best and then get even better” - an EMC interview!

Welcome to Expert Insights, a series dedicated to introducing colleagues with unique sets of critical expertise, happy to share with you what they know! Join us as we talk with University of Twente Professor and Thales EMC Director Frank Leferink. Let’s talk about preventing a disturbance in the force…

I remember you telling me in a previous interview that you ‘dabble in electronic disturbances’. How do you explain your job at birthday parties?

“I usually tell people that I try to prevent electronic outages, systems going on the fritz, etc. This used to be easier to explain when holding a cell phone close still caused your car radio to produce noise, or when your tv glitched when you tried to vacuum at the same time.

All these types of electronic malfunctions no longer occur since our society has become much better at controlling electromagnetic compatibility by limiting unwanted generation and reception of electromagnetic energy. Now imagine the amount of energy our radars need to broadcast to function properly. You want to be able to turn on that radar and still have everything else onboard work as intended. Same on the battlefield, where essential communications options always need to stay online. That’s where our Thales EMC specialty comes in.”

What job did you imagine doing growing up?

“Weirdly, this. I remember always wanting to play with electronics. I think I was around eight when I got a box full of lightbulbs and really started tinkering. I blew a good amount of them up, haha. After high school I studied electrical engineering, after which I applied to Signaal [now Thales]. It already was a well-respected local high-tech employer, and they had an opening in their EMC department.”

And you just never left.

“Right. I simply started doing more and more EMC work in and around Thales, including teaching and researching at the University of Twente. I never found a topic more fascinating or fun. EMC has you working between nanovolts and megavolts, between direct current and light. I could be talking to a microwave engineer today and helping our public prosecutor’s office research a topic tomorrow. It’s the wide range of applications that makes it so great.

Not that everyone’s always happy to see the EMC team join a project, mind you. Occasionally someone’ll discover an EMC issue in an ongoing project, and everyone will need to go back to the drawing board. But much has changed over the years. Our EMC department used to be focused on solving issues when they would pop up. Now we’re right at the front of the development chain, preventing malfunctions before they can happen.”

You’re in a NATO advisory board, you’re quoted in articles on smart electricity meters... Government actors and media always seem to know where to find you. Why’s that?

“Our EMC specialists at Thales are very, very good. One of the best in the world, and I’m not kidding. For instance, we provide the EMC appropriate ship designs for many countries even if we don’t supply them with any physical equipment.

Our unique radar expertise provides us with a great advantage. For instance, you might think EMC is a very relevant topic in the aviation industry – and it is! – but the impact and power on board of a plane does not even come close to that of most of our radars. We’re used to calculating impact and mitigating risk on a different scale. Those in the radar industry are ahead of the EMC pack.”

Has being an experienced Thales expert influenced your job in any way?

“Yes! I feel very responsible for sharing knowledge. I like to get as many students excited about EMC as I can. Not by monologuing information at them, but by allowing them to be young. To try out stuff themselves, make mistakes, learn from it and start over. We need to remember kids learn how to walk by falling down. Being allowed to make mistakes makes you more brave, more resilient. That’s something we should keep in mind within Thales as well.

I enjoy trying to find out what part of our EMC world new colleagues particularly enjoy. That’s where you can help them excel! Do what you do best and then get even better. With a company such as Thales, the world truly is your oyster. Go get it.”