IEC TS 61000-1-6:2026

IEC TS 61000-1-6:2026, which is a Technical Specification provides methods and background information for the evaluation of measurement uncertainty in electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) tests and calibrations. It gives guidance to cover general measurement uncertainty considerations within the IEC 61000 series. The objective of this document is to give advice to EMC technical committees dealing with EMC tests, testing laboratories and calibration laboratories on the development of measurement uncertainty budgets; to allow uniform development and comparability of these budgets between laboratories; and to align the treatment of measurement uncertainty across the technical committees of the IEC dealing with EMC tests.
Any contributing factor to measurement uncertainty that is mentioned within this document will be treated as an example: the EMC committee responsible for the preparation of a basic immunity or emission standard is responsible for identifying the factors that contribute to the measurement uncertainty of the relevant test method. This document provides:
• methods for the evaluation of measurement uncertainty (MU),
• mathematical formulae for probability density functions and their interpretation,
• examples of MU calculations,
• examples of MU applications,
• MU reporting information.
This document is not intended to summarize all measurement uncertainty influence quantities, nor is it intended to specify how measurement uncertainty will be taken into account in determining compliance with an EMC requirement. This first edition cancels and replaces the first edition of IEC TR 61000-1-6 published in 2012. This edition constitutes a technical revision. This edition includes the following significant technical changes with respect to the previous edition:
a) purpose of and responsibilities in measurement uncertainty evaluation by testing and calibration laboratories, technical committees dealing with EMC requirements have been introduced;
b) classification of measurement uncertainty contributions (measurement uncertainty, measurement instrumentation uncertainty, intrinsic uncertainty of the measurand) has been revised;
c) new clauses devoted to measurement uncertainty in emission test methods and measurement uncertainty in immunity test methods and in calibration have been added;
d) methods of measurement uncertainty calculation have been enriched by introducing the GUM Supplement 1 (GUMS1) numerical approach based on Monte Carlo method;
e) measurement uncertainty budget development has been revised to include the basic steps to follow in case of application of the GUM method or of the GUMS1 method;
f) a clause specifically devoted to the measurement model function has been added to emphasize the importance of the measurement model and to provide guidance when the measurement model is unknown;
g) the clause on probability density functions has been revised to include the Student-t probability density function;
h) the clause on Type A and Type B evaluations of uncertainty has been revised to improve readability;
i) the clause on the conversion from linear quantities to decibel and vice versa has been revised to improve readability and make some corrections;
j) the clause on the applicability of measurement uncertainty has been modified to improve readability and to remove statements conflicting with conformity assessments standards;
k) Annex A and Annex B have been revised by including results of GUMS1 application;
l) new annexes have been introduced, namely Annex C (on metrological confirmation of measurement equipment), Annex D (on sampling statistics, moved from the main text to this annex to improve readability of the whole document), Annex E (on robust statistics for processing interlaboratory comparison data, with example), Annex F (including an example of application of MU for the assessment of the risk of an out of tolerance of measurement equipment) and Annex G (including an example of application of MU for the evaluation of in-tolerance probability as a function of tolerance to uncertainty ratio – TUR).