A General Method for Determining the Independent Stirrer Positions in Reverberation Chambers: Adjusting the Correlation Threshold

A general method for determining the number of independent stirrer positions in reverberation chambers is presented here. For this method, the field distribution within a defined test volume is measured for a given number of measurement points and as a function of the stirrer position. The field distributions of the stirrer positions are tested for linear correlation using the Pearson correlation coefficient and a correlation threshold that is adjusted to the number of measurement points. Based on the calculated correlation coefficients and a specially developed algorithm, the number and distribution of the independent stirrer positions are determined. In order to reduce the measurement time, an approach for reducing the number of measurement points and adjusting the correlation threshold is evaluated based on the field homogeneity created by the independent stirrer positions.