RF-EMF Exposure Measurement for 5G Over Mm-Wave Base Station With MIMO Antenna

Abstract

The fifth-generation (5G) technology offers more capacity and data rates than the previous generations. It provides ultra-low latency and ultra-high dependability, allowing for efficient services in many industries. Using radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMF) above 6 GHz in 5G millimeter Wave(mm-Wave) base stations has concerned many people due to the potential health risks caused by EMF exposure. This study aims to measure the maximum exposure emitted by a 5G mm-Wave base station by utilizing international standards in both its assessment methodology and exposure limits. In this study, the R&S®TSMA6 scanner, R&S®ROMES4 software, and R&S®TSME30DC down converter have been used for the measurement campaign; in addition to the user equipment device (UE), GPS, and an omnidirectional antenna. The investigation is based on a code selective method due to the radiated power fluctuations over time with data traffic. To conduct the measurement, six tests are taken based on three different time frames, antenna directions, and user equipment device (UE) to investigate the RF-EMF exposure. The maximum and average exposure from the 5G mm-Wave base station are calculated and compared with the ICNIRP standard. The maximum exposure from the 29.5 GHz base station is found to be 5.71 V/m, and the highest amount of average exposure is 2.02V/m. In this study, it was found that the maximum and average exposure (RF-EMF) produced from a single 5G mm-Wave base station are well within the allowed RF-EMF standard limit.INDEX TERMS 5G mm-Wave BS, massive MIMO, radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMF), measurement.

Measurement and Simulation-Based Exposure Assessment at a Far-Field for a Multitechnology Cellular Site up to 5G NR

“…The obtained results show that the maximum TER is very low compared to the ICNIRP limit, specifically it is 10.5×10 -5 for the dense area, 8.8×10 -5 for the urban area site, 6.2×10 -5 for the suburban area, and 5.6×10 -5 for the rural area. These results are in agreement with the studies published in [17,23,[29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36]. Of note, these studies were focused on assessment for one technology, and in this work, the results present the accumulated TER.…”

“…The 800 MHz results include the combined power density for both 4G-FDD-LTE and NB-IoT. For the four scenarios (dense, urban, suburban, and rural), the obtained results show that the power densities from all technologies (2G/3G/4G/5G) are low compared to the reference limit, which is consistent with the results of previously published studies [17,23,[29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36] related to this work. For the dense area site, as shown in FIGURE 10, the total power densities trend with increasing distance from the site.…”

EMF Exposure in 5G Standalone mm-Wave Deployments: What Is the Impact of Downlink Traffic?

“…Focusing on commercial mm-Wave deployments, very few works [9], [10] measure the EMF from operative mm-Wave BSs, mainly due to the fact that 5G mm-Wave deployments have been installed very recently -and still not pervasively in the world. Therefore, the assessment of exposure from such deployments is a novelty in the field.…”

“…Wali et al [10] measure the exposure from a mm-Wave BS, by exploiting a measurement chain composed of a network scanner, a down-converter and an omni-directional antenna. A code-selective methodology, based on the extrapolation of exposure from the power collected over decoded 5G signals (like the SS-RSRP), is applied.…”

“…At a regulation level, ground-truth measurements should demonstrate that mm-Wave exposure complies with maximum limits defined by law [7]. At the research level, then, the topic is relatively in an infancy phase, as few works face the measurement of mm-Wave BS exposure in precommercial 5G deployments (see e.g., [8]), and very few in commercial ones [9], [10]. In addition, the definition of EMF measurement methodologies tailored to the mm-Wave domain is of interest for both international and national exposure standardization bodies, which define the procedures to assess the exposure compliance against the maximum EMF limits [11], [12].…”