Analysis of Human Exposure to Electromagnetic Fields in 5G Uplink and Downlink

TL;DR

This paper investigates human exposure to electromagnetic fields in 5G networks, focusing on how increased base stations and beamforming techniques affect health risks and potential mitigation strategies.

Contribution

It analyzes the implications of 5G's dense small-cell deployment and advanced beamforming on human EMF exposure, proposing potential benefits for exposure reduction.

Findings

Increased base stations lead to higher EMF exposure risk.

Beamforming can reduce EMF leakage to unintended directions.

Future 5G networks may both increase and mitigate EMF exposure.

Abstract

Concern has been widely acknowledged about human health---e.g., heating of the eyes and skin--from exposure to electromagnetic fields (EMF) produced by wireless transmitters. Mobile telecommunications rely on an extensive network of base stations (BSs) and handheld devices that transmit signals via EMF. There is chance of aggravation due to two important changes that will be seen in future cellular networks. First, the number of BSs will remarkably grow with the proliferation of small-cell networks, which will expose humans to EMF more often. Second, highly concentrated EMF beams will be generated by employing larger antenna arrays to overcome faster EMF energy attenuation in higher-frequency bands such as millimeter wave (mmW) spectrum, which will increase damage if the main beam points to the human body. However, the two changes can be exploited as leverages for (i) wider selection of alternative BSs and (ii) more precise beamforming to a desired user equipment (UE) with less EMF leakage to other directions, respectively. Harnessing the two changes, we have been investigating the human health impacts of 5G wireless systems. This extended abstract summarizes our findings thus far.