Simulating Rician Environment Using Switchable Metasurface Absorber in Reverberation Chambers

The reverberation chamber (RC) has been widely applied in electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) and over-the-air (OTA) tests. Replicating the real-life wireless channel that the device under test (DUT) operates in ensures reliable EMC and OTA tests. This letter focuses on simulating the Rician environment in the RC. The current methods simulating the Rician channel limit the DUT to a fixed position or require time-consuming manual operations. To overcome these limitations, a method using a switchable metasurface absorber (MA) is proposed. Extensive RC-based measurements are performed to verify the feasibility of the proposed method. It is found that the Rician K-factor and some other metrics can be tuned effectively by adjusting the number of units working in the reflection (or absorption) state. The proposed method can be used alone for precise tuning, as well as combined with other methods for flexible tuning. The findings of this work allow rapid, flexible, and accurate tuning of the Rician K-factor in RC, which is useful to simulate the Rician environment for both EMC and OTA applications.