Overview of 6 Years R&D on Characterizing Wireless Devices in Rayleigh Fading Using Reverberation Chambers

Abstract

The paper gives an overview of how measurements in reverberation chambers can be used to characterize the performance of small antennas and wireless terminals for mobile communications in environments with Rayleigh fading. The measurement capabilities include radiation efficiency, radiated power, diversity gain, MIMO system capacity and receiver sensitivity. In the latter case the reverberation chamber enable fast measurements of bit error rate (BER) and frame error rate (FER), and thereby total isotropic sensitivity (TIS). In addition, the terminals can be tested under realistic and continuous fading very similar to what is present in urban and indoor environments, referred to as average fading sensitivity (AFS). The chamber is the only known measurement instrument for directly measuring diversity gain and channel capacity; the alternative being to drive measurement instruments around in an actual urban environment. The measurements can fast and easily be performed for different talk positions relative to a head phantom.