Comparison of “thresholding in reverb chambers” for automotive testing

The reverberation chamber is gaining widespread acceptance in the EMC community as a viable tool for performing immunity tests. The latest revisions of the GM and Ford automotive standards support the use of reverb chambers for immunity testing of components and subassemblies. The main advantage over anechoic chambers is that most of the energy fed into a reverb chamber can be used to develop the field as opposed to anechoic chambers where, depending upon the transmit antenna pattern, more than 50% of the transmit power can be dissipated in the absorber lining. This coupled with the increased realism of the reverb makes it an attractive and cost effective test chamber. The purpose of this presentation is to propose a method of thresholding, which reduces the overall immunity test time without compromising the validity of the test.