Mitigation of Human Exposure to RF Fields in Downlink of Millimeter-Wave Cellular Systems

TL;DR

This paper introduces a downlink protocol for millimeter-wave cellular systems that maximizes data rates while significantly reducing RF exposure to humans, addressing a gap in existing research.

Contribution

It proposes a novel downlink protocol that minimizes RF exposure metrics like PD and SAR without greatly compromising data throughput.

Findings

Reduces power density and SAR compared to standard protocols.

Maintains high data rates with minimal exposure impact.

Addresses a neglected area in RF exposure mitigation for downlink.

Abstract

Out of the very few studies that paid proper attention to the harmful health impacts in millimeter-wave (mmW) communications, most of them are concerned about uplink cases due to closer contact with the human body. Our recent study revealed that even the human exposure to radio frequency (RF) fields in downlink mmW technology is not very minimum to be ignored. There were a few RF exposure mitigation techniques for uplinks, but the downlink scenario is hardly paid any attention. However, this paper proposes a downlink protocol for mmW cellular communications that achieves the maximum data rate while keeping the impacts on human health minimized. Our results show that the proposed technique lowers both power density (PD) and specific absorption rate (SAR) compared to the typical protocol, with only slight sacrifice in data rates.