Evaluation of Shielding Effectiveness of Physically Small Enclosures Using Different Types of Receiving Antennas via Full-wave Simulation

Shielding effectiveness (SE) is a crucial but challenging parameter for assessing the performance of shielding enclosures, particularly when dealing with physically small enclosures. IEEE Std. 299.1 outlines a standardized multi-port method using a reverberation chamber (RC) to effectively evaluate SE for such enclosures. However, uncertainties arise when the efficiencies of the two receiving antennas are unknown. When characterizing the SE of very small enclosures, the use of a straight monopole antenna (as specified in IEEE Std. 299.1) may not be practical. To address the problem of the physical implementation of a straight monopole in very small enclosures, both L-shaped antennas and PCB antennas are employed. To obtain the SE of the enclosures under test (EUT) with these two types of antennas, full-wave simulations are used. To overcome the challenges of the multi-port method, a simple two-antenna method is proposed and validated in this paper. Compared to straight monopoles, the L-shaped and PCB antennas can offer practical alternatives for evaluating SE in real-world industrial scenarios. Additionally, the two-antenna approach eliminates the need to know the receiving antenna’s efficiency.