Characterization of a reverberation chamber for automotive susceptibility

This paper describes the implementation and measurement of a reverberation chamber for susceptibility testing of automotive electronics in the range 200-1000 MHz. The reverberation method goes a long way to solving a susceptibility test problem that we have had: in the 200-1000 MHz frequency range, required power levels have entailed prohibitive costs. The reverberation chamber solves this. The method indicates that a nonpolarized field can be produced with high field components in each of the axes. This should speed testing, since the need to rotate a DUT is removed. Preliminary measurement also suggests that a polarized field may be attainable with proper mapping of the stirring paddle positions.