Determination of reverberation distance using frequency and time domain

With the advent and abundance of wireless devices and the confined spaces in which they are installed, the exposure dominance of the direct path and the scattered path needs to be studied. Wireless connectivity and reliability of wireless routers installed in industrial environments, deployment of RFID tags on concrete structures for structural monitoring, safe operation of various sensors coexisting in ad-hoc networks are examples of wireless systems that are encountered every day. The metallic nature of the installation environment reflects EM energy which can constructively or destructively aid the performance of wireless systems. When there is a line of sight between the transmitter and the receiver, the direct path seems to dominate and the received power varies as square of the distance. When the environment is reflective, the multipath contribution is dominant over the direct path even for small distances of separation. In this paper, a method to measure the distance at which the direct and the scattered path are equal is proposed and measurements in both frequency domain and time domain are presented.