Field Uniformity Assessment of a Reverberation Chamber for a Large-Scale Animal Study

An exposure system was designed and implemented for the purpose of joint large-scale animal experiments conducted in Korea and Japan using a reverberation chamber (RC) in both countries. Prior to the start of the animal experiments, the parameters S
₂₁
, electric field (E-field) uniformity, and Q factor were evaluated to confirm the performance of the developed chambers. The E-field uniformity, which is the most important performance factor of an RC, was evaluated at 900 MHz on 150 measurement values taken at 150 points in a loaded chamber with 80 live rats and in an empty chamber. The conditions of the loaded chamber with the rats are almost the same as the actual experimental environment and in which the rats, watering systems, animal bedding, cages, and cage racks were included. Two mean body weights of 330 and 470 g for the 80 rats were considered. The E-field uniformity was within the mean ± 1.0 dB and mean ± 2.3 dB under the empty and the rat-loaded conditions, respectively.