Advances in mode-stirred reverberation chambers for wireless communication performance evaluation

Reverberation chambers (RC) are a popular tool for laboratory wireless communication performance evaluation, and their standardization for Over-The-Air (OTA) measurements is underway. Yet, the inherent limitations of single-cavity RCs to emulate isotropic Rayleigh-fading scenarios with uniform phase distribution and high elevation angular spread put their representation of realistic scenarios into jeopardy. Recent advances in the last few years, however, have solved all these limitations by using more general mode-stirred reverberation chambers (MSC), wherein the number of cavities, their stirring and coupling mechanisms, and their software postprocessing algorithms is far from simple, representing a new era for wireless communications research, development, and over-the-air testing. This article highlights recent advances in the development of second-generation mode-stirred chambers for wireless communications performance evaluation.