EMF Levels in 5G New Radio Environment in Seoul, Korea

Abstract

This paper reports the electromagnetic field (EMF) exposure levels from fifth generation (5G) services. Three mobile operators in South Korea launched the world's first 5G New Radio networks using the 3.5 GHz band in April 2019. The transmitted power of the uplink slots and the synchronization signal reference signal received power (SS-RSRP) from user equipment (UE) were measured in Seoul. The power samples, averaged over a 1-s duration, were obtained for a traffic period of approximately 270 h from October 2019 to early February 2020 using the file transfer protocol while driving along the side streets in residential areas of Seoul. The measurement results show that the time-average level when exposed to a beam sweep of the base stations was less than 5 µW/m 2 . However, the UE transmitted power level approached the maximum for a considerable period of the total measurement time owing to the extremely low SS-RSRP level of the base stations.

In Situ Assessment of 5G NR Massive MIMO Base Station Exposure in a Commercial Network in Bern, Switzerland

“…Without inducing any downlink traffic, the actual exposure levels were very low, with a maximum of just 0.05 V/m (Figure 7), and the contribution to the environmental RF exposure was small (Table 1). A similar value of 5 µW/m 2 or 0.04 V/m for the exposure to the SSB was found in [16]. When a maximum downlink load was generated towards a UE on the same line as the measurement probe with respect to an NR base station, E avg increased to maximally 0.4 V/m, which still only contributed 9.5% to the total environmental RF exposure as measured at the four investigated sites (Table 1).…”

“…Several studies on the experimental assessment of the exposure due to NR base stations have been published in the past few years [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]. Furthermore, in [16], drive-test measurements in three NR networks operating in the 3.6 GHz band were performed, collecting samples of the transmit power (Tx) and of the synchronization signal reference signal received power (SS-RSRP) received by a mobile device, while millions of Tx power samples from user equipment were also recorded in two commercial NR networks in [17].…”

Radiofrequency Exposure Levels from Mobile Phone Base Stations in Outdoor Environments and an Underground Shopping Mall in Japan

“…Data are insufficient to actually evaluate the levels of exposure from various EMF sources and to grasp the transition of wireless technologies in an individual's various activities in daily life. Research on exposure level monitoring has already been conducted mainly in Europe and other countries [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]. In some countries, the exposure levels from mobile phone base stations and broadcasting transmission towers have been monitored and disclosed [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8].…”

“…Another important point is to investigate the actual EMF level in the vicinity of a mobile phone, because they are usually used close to the head and the body. Thus, exposure levels from mobile phones were also evaluated in other countries [14][15][16]. Since it is difficult to evaluate exposure levels anywhere and anytime, some techniques to extrapolate and estimate using measurement or simulation data are proposed and studied [17][18][19][20][21].…”

A New Paradigm in 5G Maximum Power Extrapolation for Human Exposure Assessment: Forcing gNB Traffic Toward the Measurement Equipment

“…The physical signals defined in dowlink are: PSS and SSS are transmitted in the SS-PBCH block using BPSK constellation on broadcast beams with constant power, so they are suitable as reference signals. SSS has been proposed as reference signal in [13], [16].…”