Pencil Beamforming Increases Human Exposure to ElectroMagnetic Fields: True or False?

TL;DR

This study demonstrates that localization-enhanced pencil beamforming in 5G networks reduces electromagnetic field exposure while maintaining high throughput, countering the common belief that narrow beams increase exposure levels.

Contribution

The paper introduces a novel localization-enhanced pencil beamforming technique that dynamically adjusts beam width based on UE localization, reducing EMF exposure compared to fixed-width beamforming.

Findings

Pencil beamforming reduces EMF exposure compared to fixed-beam techniques.

The approach maintains high throughput levels for 5G services.

Exposure reduction benefits extend beyond served UEs to surrounding areas.

Abstract

According to a very popular belief - very widespread among non-scientific communities - the exploitation of narrow beams, a.k.a. "pencil beamforming", results in a prompt increase of exposure levels radiated by 5G Base Stations (BSs). To face such concern with a scientific approach, in this work we propose a novel localization-enhanced pencil beamforming technique, in which the traffic beams are tuned in accordance with the uncertainty localization levels of User Equipment (UE). Compared to currently deployed beamforming techniques, which generally employ beams of fixed width, we exploit the localization functionality made available by the 5G architecture to synthesize the direction and the width of each pencil beam towards each served UE. We then evaluate the effectiveness of pencil beamforming in terms of ElectroMagnetic Field (EMF) exposure and UE throughput levels over different realistic case-studies. Results, obtained from a publicly released open-source simulator, dispel the myth: the adoption of localization-enhanced pencil beamforming triggers a prompt reduction of exposure w.r.t. other alternative techniques, which include e.g., beams of fixed width and cellular coverage not exploiting beamforming. The EMF reduction is achieved not only for the UE that are served by the pencil beams, but also over the whole territory (including the locations in proximity to the 5G BS). In addition, large throughput levels - adequate for most of 5G services - can be guaranteed when each UE is individually served by one dedicated beam.