Vehicle electrical/electronic systems may be affected when immersed in an electromagnetic field generated by sources such as radio and TV broadcast stations, radar and communication sites, mobile transmitters, cellular phones, etc. Reverberation method is used to evaluate the immunity of electronic devices in the frequency range of 400 MHz - 18GHz. Pulse modulation is used for testing above 800 MHz.

This document provides the component design and test engineers with a test procedure and the performance requirements necessary to evaluate the immunity of electronic devices to radiated electromagnetic fields early in the design stage as well as pilot and production stages. Ensuring electromagnetic compatibility early in the development stage will minimize costly changes later in the program and will prevent excessive component level hardening during full-vehicle level testing.

The reverberation test method performs a dual function:

The primary function of the method is to provide a bench test procedure correlatable to vehicle-level radiated immunity testing in the anechoic chamber and at mobile transmitter sites.

The method can be used to evaluate the relative performance of different designs of the same device.