Sensing Reverberation Chamber Loading for IO-Link Wireless Testing

Reverberation chambers (RCs) can be used as repeatable and shielded test environments for electromagnetic compatibility testing and performance evaluation of wireless com-munication devices, as they inherently emulate a Rician/Rayleigh fading environment. Loading a RC with radio frequency (RF) absorbing material leads to an increasing coherence bandwidth (CBW) of the radio channel within the RC, where the appropriate value can be tailored to specific test specifications. In this paper the CBW is directly measured by the wireless system under test. Measurements were carried out with different loadings and the link quality indication (LQI) was used to determine an appropriate RC loading.