NASA Langley's 80 MHz reverberation chamber.

Reverberation chambers are useful for determining the susceptibility of electronic equipment and the measurement of the shielding effectiveness of materials and cable/connector assemblies. A reverberation chamber is an electrically large, high-quality cavity whose boundary conditions are varied by means of a rotating conductive tuner or stirrer. Several issues surrounding the application and extension of mode stirred chambers remain including extension of MSCs to the lower frequencies and examining shielding effectiveness measurements in a reverberation chamber. Transition region chamber characterization is required for extension into the lower frequency regime. The overall goal is to extend the lower cavity cut off limit. Numerical modeling of the chamber via finite elements may be useful as well as exploring other cavity configurations, antenna positioning, EUT rotation, and polarization. Shielding effectiveness of various structures can also be explored in a reverberation chamber.  Typical shielding effectiveness measurements are conceptualized under plane wave illumination. The interpretation and connection of the multimode field configuration and plane wave illumination will be examined.

An additional area of interest in the area of aircraft safety is determining the nature of an external electromagnetic upset. A reverberation chamber will provide an upset that may not be experienced in the typical flight configuration. In particular, the connection of reverberation measurements to the plane wave excitations typically experienced with external upset conditions can be explored.

 For additional information see my IEEE Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) Paper (1998). You will need the ACROBAT reader.