Impact of Asynchronous Stirring on the Estimation of Field Homogeneity in Mode-Stirred Reverberation Chambers

This paper investigates the effect of different stirring strategies on the estimation of field homogeneity in mode-stirred reverberation chambers. Field homogeneity is one of the fundamental properties of field uniformity in reverberation chambers, and the study of factors that influence it is of crucial importance. By comparing measurements from two different stirring strategies in mode-stirring operation and confronting them with mode-tuned operation, we show that field homogeneity appears worse when the stirrer is rotated in an asynchronous (i.e. not zeroed and not timed) fashion. An alternative definition of field homogeneity together with a multivariate random variable approach helps attribute this phenomenon to high (apparent) correlations that predict a fictitiously low effective sample size. The findings underscore the importance of considering the stirring strategy in mode-stirred reverberation chamber measurements.