On the Use of Reverberation Chambers to Simulate a Rician Radio Environment for the Testing of Wireless Devices

With the proliferation of wireless devices in recent years, there is a growing need to test the operation and functionality of these various devices in different multipath environments, ranging from line-of-sight environment to a pure Rayleigh environment. In this paper we discuss how a reverberation chamber can be used to simulate a controllable Rician radio environment for the testing of a wireless device. We show that by varying the characteristics of the reverberation chamber and/or the antenna configurations in the chamber, any desired Rician K-factor can be obtained. Expressions for the desired K-factor as a function of the chamber and antenna characteristics will be presented. Experimental results are presented to illustrate the validity of these expressions, to show how the reverberation chamber can be used to simulate different multipath environments, and to show the realization of a controlled K-factor test facility. We present both a one-antenna and a two-antenna test configuration approach

[1]  S. Rice.  Mathematical analysis of random noise , 1944 .

[2]  R. Harrington.  Time-Harmonic Electromagnetic Fields , 1961 .

[3]  Athanasios Papoulis,et al.  Probability, Random Variables and Stochastic Processes , 1965 .

[4]  M. Abramowitz,et al.  Handbook of Mathematical Functions with Formulas, Graphs and Mathematical Tables. U.S. Department of Commerce, National Bureau of Standards , 1965 .

[5]  C. Tai,et al.  Dyadic green functions in electromagnetic theory , 1994 .

[6]  W. C. Jakes,et al.  Microwave Mobile Communications , 1974 .

[7]  Bruno O. Shubert,et al.  Random variables and stochastic processes , 1979 .

[8]  R. Morgan.  Mobile radio communications. , 1982, Hospital engineering.

[9]  M T. Ma,et al.  Eigenmodes and the Composite Quality Factor of a ReverberatingChamber | NIST , 1983 .

[10]  Galen H. Koepke,et al.  Design, Evaluation and Use of a Reverberation Chamber for Performing Electromagnetic Susceptibility/VulnerabilityMeasurements , 1986 .

[11]  J. Kostas,et al.  Statistical model for a mode-stirred chamber , 1991 .

[12]  D. Hill,et al.  Aperture Excitation of Electrically Large, Lossy Cavities , 1993 .

[13]  Theodore S. Rappaport,et al.  Wireless communications - principles and practice , 1996 .

[14]  D. Hill.  Plane wave integral representation for fields in reverberation chambers , 1998 .

[15]  Dennis G. Camell,et al.  Evaluation of the NASA Langley Research Center mode-stirred chamber facility , 1999 .

[16]  T. Nguyen.  RF loading effects of aircraft seats in an electromagnetic reverberating environment , 1999, Gateway to the New Millennium. 18th Digital Avionics Systems Conference. Proceedings (Cat. No.99CH37033).

[17]  M. Migliaccio,et al.  Reverberating chamber electromagnetic field in presence of an unstirred component , 2000 .

[18]  P.-S. Kildal,et al.  Characterization of antennas for mobile and wireless terminals by using reverberation chambers: improved accuracy by platform stirring , 2001, IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society International Symposium. 2001 Digest. Held in conjunction with: USNC/URSI National Radio Science Meeting (Cat. No.01CH37229).

[19]  P. Kildal,et al.  Study of distributions of modes and plane waves in reverberation chambers for the characterization of antennas in a multipath environment , 2001 .

[20]  Per-Simon Kildal,et al.  Detection of a polarization imbalance in reverberation chambers and how to remove it by polarization stirring when measuring antenna efficiencies , 2002 .

[21]  N. Serafimov,et al.  Comparison between radiation efficiencies of phone antennas and radiated power of mobile phones measured in anechoic chambers and reverberation chamber , 2002, IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society International Symposium (IEEE Cat. No.02CH37313).

[22]  Joonho Byun,et al.  Definition of effective diversity gain and how to measure it in a reverberation chamber , 2002 .

[23]  Erping Li,et al.  Loading effect of EUT on maximal electric field level in a reverberation chamber for immunity test , 2002, 2002 IEEE International Symposium on Electromagnetic Compatibility.

[24]  Gregory D. Durgin,et al.  Space-Time Wireless Channels , 2002 .

[25]  D. M. Zhang,et al.  Influences of loading absorber on the performances of a reverberation chamber , 2003, 2003 IEEE Symposium on Electromagnetic Compatibility. Symposium Record (Cat. No.03CH37446).

[26]  Christopher L. Holloway,et al.  Shielding effectiveness measurements of materials using nested reverberation chambers , 2003 .

[27]  Christopher L. Holloway,et al.  Assessing loaded reverberation chambers: calculating threshold metrics , 2003, 2003 IEEE Symposium on Electromagnetic Compatibility. Symposium Record (Cat. No.03CH37446).

[28]  P. Kildal,et al.  Electromagnetic analysis of effective and apparent diversity gain of two parallel dipoles , 2003, IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters.

[29]  Christopher L. Holloway,et al.  The Effects of Loading Configurations on the Performance of Reverberation Chambers | NIST , 2004 .

[30]  Magnus Otterskog,et al.  On creating a nonisotropic propagation environment inside a scattered field chamber , 2004 .

[31]  M. Lienard,et al.  Simulation of dual array multipath channels using mode-stirred reverberation chambers , 2004 .

[32]  J. Clegg,et al.  Optimization of stirrer designs in a reverberation chamber , 2005, IEEE Transactions on Electromagnetic Compatibility.

[33]  K. Harima.  Determination of EMI antenna factor using reverberation chamber , 2005, 2005 International Symposium on Electromagnetic Compatibility, 2005. EMC 2005..

[34]  P.-S. Kildal,et al.  Measurements of total isotropic sensitivity and average fading sensitivity of CDMA phones in reverberation chamber , 2005, 2005 IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society International Symposium.

[35]  P. Kildal,et al.  Radiation efficiency, correlation, diversity gain and capacity of a six-monopole antenna array for a MIMO system: theory, simulation and measurement in reverberation chamber , 2005 .

[36]  C.L. Holloway,et al.  Requirements for an effective reverberation chamber: unloaded or loaded , 2006, IEEE Transactions on Electromagnetic Compatibility.