Dennis Lewis of Technical Fellow, Boeing

Electromagnetic reverberation chambers have been used for many years by the Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) community to measure the susceptibility and emissions for various electronic components and systems. This presentation describes how statistical processes were used to reduce the uncertainty of these chambers to a level necessary for precision metrology applications. These processes were applied to the calibration of electromagnetic field probes and the assessment of antenna efficiencies. A brief comparison of traditional calibration methods employing transverse electromagnetic (TEM) cells and anechoic chambers to the new statistical reverberant environment will be shown.

The presentation also goes on to explain how these techniques were later applied to a wide variety of aircraft measurements. A technique which utilizes two side by side reverberation chambers sharing a common wall with an arbitrary shaped aperture, useful for the assessment of component shielding, will be discussed.  Utilizing this same approach, it is possible to assess the shielding of large structures such as commercial aircraft.  These aircraft shielding measurements are necessary for High Intensity Radiated Field Susceptibility (HIRF) certifications.

With the proliferation of wireless devices it is important to understand how they behave in complex electromagnetic environments and how they interact with other devices and systems in which they are collocated. Aircraft environments have been shown to behave similarly to reverberation chambers and therefore these techniques can be employed to study propagation environments and system interactions. This presentation will give examples of how these techniques were employed to measure bulk absorption used to simulate passenger loading of aircraft, field mapping which is useful for the evaluation of signal coverage and channel interference as well as signal propagation characteristics.

Biography:

Dennis Lewis received his BS EE degree with honors from Henry Cogswell College and his MS degree in Physics from the University of Washington.  He has worked at Boeing for 29 years and is recognized as a Technical Fellow. He currently has leadership and technical responsibility for the primary RF, Microwave and Antenna Metrology labs. Dennis holds eight patents and is the recipient of the 2013 & 2015 Boeing Special Invention Award.   He is a member of the IEEE and several of its technical societies including the Microwave Theory and Techniques Society (MTT-S), the Antennas and Propagation Society and the Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) Society.   He actively contributes to these societies as a member of the IEEE MTT-S subcommittee 11 on microwave measurements and as a Board Member and a past Distinguished Lecturer for the EMC Society.  He is a Senior Member and serves as Vice President on the Board of Directors for the Antenna Measurements Techniques Association (AMTA) and chaired its annual symposium in 2012.  Dennis is a part time faculty member teaching a course on Measurement Science at North Seattle College and is chairman of the Technical Advisory Committee. His current technical interests include aerospace applications of reverberation chamber test techniques as well as microwave measurement systems and uncertainties.

Address:Illinois, United States

Dennis Lewis of Technical Fellow, Boeing

Biography:

Address:Illinois, United States