Testing military ground & shipboard to MIL-STD-461G CS101
MIL-STD-461G CS101 is not a test of whether the equipment functions. It is a test of whether it can be upset — disturbance is injected deliberately onto the power leads and the equipment is watched for any change in behaviour. The subject here is vehicle electronics, shipboard converters, deployable power systems, running on 28 VDC, 270 VDC, 440 V 60 Hz shipboard, and the qualification being chased is survivability on a bus shared with motors, weapons and generators. What decides it is audio-frequency ripple injection, not anything the supply does at nominal. 400 Hz waveform synthesis belongs to a different document. Two things are needed: the injection chain, and series ripple injection across 30 Hz to 150 kHz via a coupling transformer, driven either by a signal generator and power amplifier chain or by a programmable source with built-in ripple and interharmonic injection. The EUT's own supply must be clean and fed through 50 µH LISNs, sized to the platform power type.
What you are testing
- Device under test
- vehicle electronics, shipboard converters, deployable power systems
- Bus
- 28 VDC, 270 VDC, 440 V 60 Hz shipboard
- Who buys this
- defence primes and depot sustainment programmes
What MIL-STD-461G CS101 does not cover
- 400 Hz waveform synthesis
- reliability duration testing
- grid ride-through
- automotive voltage classes
If your programme needs those, they come from a different standard and often different hardware.
The limits this test has to reproduce
Ground and shipboard platforms live on the DC side of this standard. The 400 Hz AC clauses are not your test — the 28 V and 270 V bus behaviour is.
| Parameter | Value | Clause |
|---|---|---|
| Frequency range | 30 Hz – 150 kHz | CS101 |
| Applicability | AC inputs ≤30 A per phase and all DC inputs | CS101 |
| Limit Curve #2 | 126 dBµV (≈2.0 V RMS) for nominal source voltage ≤28 V | CS101 Figure |
| Alternative compliance | 80 W into 0.5 Ω precalibrated, falling to 0.09 W at 150 kHz | CS101 |
| EUT power feed | Through 50 µH LISNs | §4.3.6 |
The clauses military programmes actually face, as published in MIL-STD-461G CS101, revision G, 11 December 2015. See every limit in MIL-STD-461G CS101. Certification work should be run against the published standard.
What decides the rig here
The requirements that separate a system that can run this programme from one that only meets the headline numbers.
No 400 Hz means no aircraft source
Buying an aviation-grade AC source for a ground platform is a common and expensive mis-spec. The DC clauses are the requirement.
Engine-start droop is the hard case
A slow ramp from deep undervoltage exercises hold-up behaviour that a step transient never reaches.
Depot sustainment outlives the instrument
Programmes running 20+ years should confirm calibration and support horizons before standardising a rack.
Other standards this DUT usually faces
Further reading on MIL-STD-461G CS101
Send us the clauses you have to satisfy
We will come back with the source and load capability that covers them — and tell you plainly if something in your spec needs hardware we would not supply.
Talk to an engineer