Maximum field inside a reverberation chamber modeled by the generalized extreme value distribution

Classically, the statistical model of the maximum field inside a reverberation chamber (RC) is derived from the field magnitude model that is only known for the overmoded RC. We propose in this paper to model the maximum field by the generalized extreme value (GEV) distribution, as an application of the Fisher-Tippett theorem that formulates the asymptotic distributions of sample maximum. As the knowledge of the parent distribution (field magnitude) is not required, the GEV distribution is suitable for both overmoded and undermoded regimes (few modes excited). A Monte Carlo simulation illustrates the use of the GEV distribution for the overmoded RC. Modal FEM analysis of the RC extends the application to the undermoded regime. Special attention is brought to the issue of GEV parameter estimation: The so-called L-moments technique is advantageously employed to estimate the parameters from the small data sample. Dispersion of the estimated parameters is approximated and reduced by averaging uncorrelated values obtained from a narrow frequency band.