Experimental validation of a discrete spectral representation of the electromagnetic field within an ideal reverberation chamber

A previously introduced numerical approach to modeling a susceptibility test within a reverberation chamber has been validated against experimental measurement. A sample equipment-under-test (EUT) was fabricated and tested within a reverberation chamber over a large frequency band. The scattering parameter between the source antenna and the EUT measurement port measured within the chamber over a large number of mechanical tuner steps is used to derive an estimate of the mean current magnitude excited on a probe within the EUT by a random chamber field of given RMS level. The numerical simulations were performed using a moment-method based technique accelerated by the fast multipole method. The numerically simulated and measured currents agree very well over the measured band, confirming the validity of the numerical approach for test equipment ranging in size from large to small compared to the electromagnetic wavelength.