If you are a pneumatic rf testing chamber manufacturer, an anechoic chamber will not be a new terminology in your field. This is a shielded room with materials that absorb radio waves applied to walls, floors, or ceilings. These are room-sized enclosures, whereas an engineer can walk in and work. They contain absorbers on the inside surface that are pyramidal-shaped.
This gives the room that you are working a science-fiction look and boost your working morale. Due to the unique materials that are used, they are deemed to be very expensive to develop. Why would you consider them very special and worth it knowing them? Read on this article to give you a clear guide on what and all that you need to know about the anechoic chambers.
The Flashlight Comparison
Any manufacturer must find t very useful to the customer in understanding the basic concepts through comparing radio waves and antennas to light. Imagine measuring and creating a diagram where your device shines light to get a clear picture and understanding. You will realize it is significantly easier to visualize the light patterns by following the light and its patterns.
However, you can appreciate that you can’t see the energy from the radio wave directly. Hence you should measure it using antennas and radio receivers. The ability to note the flashlight pattern is inhibited by the sun, which is referred to as inference. This can be overcome by shielding.
Shielding
This refers to getting a dark room where the outside light cannot be able to penetrate. Therefore in a dark room, all the light under observation is from one single source, your flashlight. With this, you could call it a solution. Would it not be for the reflections. So you will need to deal with the reflections.
Reflections
Suppose you imagine that your darkroom had mirrors aligned systematically. In that case, you will still be stuck in measuring your flashlight illumination as there will be a conflict of the reflected rays. Now you might want to paint over the mirrors with black paint to ensure light absorption and not the reflection in the room.
With that, you would have developed an optical anechoic chamber. You will not experience any reflections or echoes, thus the meaning of the term anechoic. Anechoic will mean in this context with no echoes. There will be no ambient light, and the walls will not be visible.
This concept is used in the RFs where a room is shielded using a unique metallic process, hence rendering it invisible or anechoic. The RF absorbing materials are loaded with a carbon foam pyramid. The sharp tips of the pyramids keep the RF waves from bouncing off. This allows the radio waves to transit easily from air to the carbon that is inside the foam. The secret to the RF absorbers is the gradual taper that is from the tip to the core. There is about point one to one percent or negative thirty to negative twenty decibels of the original wave. Due to the low level of reflections in the chamber, we can accurately measure the antenna’s gain, efficiency, and patterns in radiations.
