Derivation of the Antenna Contribution to the Reverberation-Chamber $Q$-factor based on Antenna Scattering-Matrix Theory

Abstract

A radio antenna is primarily designed to convert electromagnetic waves into electrical current and vice versa. However, a part of the incident wavefield is scattered due to structural effects andreflection at the antenna's electrical port. Because the reflected power depends on the load impedance, an antenna can also be referred to as a loaded scatterer. Its interaction with electromagnetic waves is characterized by absorption and scattering cross-sections (ACS and SCS). When immersed in a diffuse field, such as the one generated within a reverberation chamber (RC), the impact of the loaded antenna is determined by averaging these properties over incident angles. Of particular interest is the averaged ACS from which one can derive the antenna contribution to the RC quality factor (Q-factor). Current formulations rely on different power budget analyses which do not account for wave interferences between the ingoing and outgoing fields. Moreover, existing formulations consistently neglect the structural component. In this paper, we introduce a rigorous formulation of the antenna contribution to the RC Q-factor which takes into account the aforementioned effects. The antenna is modeled using the scattering-matrix theory, which linearly links the ingoing and outgoing waves in terms of spherical harmonics expansion. The derived theory is validated using several numerical simulations based on a Method-of-Moment code. The model's ability to retrieve antenna properties from multiple Q-factor estimations in an RC is then demonstrated. All results are compared with existing formulations.