Use of Mode Stirred Reverberating Chambers for Evaluating Wireless Communication Performances

In wireless communication, channel propagation prediction is sometimes difficult especially in confined metallic space due to the fast fading and multipath complexity. Wireless system deployment on aircraft and other vehicles seems to be nowadays unavoidable but some concerns remain about the reliability and security of critical and real-time communications. This paper presents the opportunity given by the Mode Stirrer reverberating Chamber (MSRC) to develop and test a wireless communication system in a multipath propagation environment. The controllable and repeatable statistical characteristics of a MSRC studied here by the measurement of transfer functions (TF) in the frequency domain make it possible to define and also emulate Rayleigh propagation channel. Modified Q factor by loading the cavity can change the RMS delay spread and the canal selectivity in order to reproduce representative propagation paths, as the one measured in an aircraft.