Reza Aminzadeh

On-body calibration and measurements using personal radiofrequency exposimeters in indoor diffuse and specular environments.

For the first time, response of personal exposimeters (PEMs) is studied under diffuse field exposure in indoor environments. To this aim, both numerical simulations, using finite-difference time-domain method, and calibration measurements were performed in the range of 880-5875 MHz covering 10 frequency bands in Belgium. Two PEMs were mounted on the body of a human male subject and calibrated on-body in an anechoic chamber (non-diffuse) and a reverberation chamber (RC) (diffuse fields). This was motivated by the fact that electromagnetic waves in indoor environments have both specular and diffuse components. Both calibrations show that PEMs underestimate actual incident electromagnetic fields. This can be compensated by using an on-body response. Moreover, it is shown that these responses are different in anechoic chamber and RC. Therefore, it is advised to use an on-body calibration in an RC in future indoor PEM measurements where diffuse fields are present. Using the response averaged over two PEMs reduced measurement uncertainty compared to single PEMs. Following the calibration, measurements in a realistic indoor environment were done for wireless fidelity (WiFi-5G) band. Measured power density values are maximally 8.9 mW/m(2) and 165.8 μW/m(2) on average. These satisfy reference levels issued by the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection in 1998. Power density values obtained by applying on-body calibration in RC are higher than values obtained from no body calibration (only PEMs) and on-body calibration in anechoic room, by factors of 7.55 and 2.21, respectively. Bioelectromagnetics. 37:298-309, 2016.

A Multi-Band Body-Worn Distributed Radio-Frequency Exposure Meter: Design, On-Body Calibration and Study of Body Morphology

A multi-band Body-Worn Distributed exposure Meter (BWDM) calibrated for simultaneous measurement of the incident power density in 11 telecommunication frequency bands, is proposed. The BDWM consists of 22 textile antennas integrated in a garment and is calibrated on six human subjects in an anechoic chamber to assess its measurement uncertainty in terms of 68% confidence interval of the on-body antenna aperture. It is shown that by using multiple antennas in each frequency band, the uncertainty of the BWDM is 22 dB improved with respect to single nodes on the front and back of the torso and variations are decreased to maximum 8.8 dB. Moreover, deploying single antennas for different body morphologies results in a variation up to 9.3 dB, which is reduced to 3.6 dB using multiple antennas for six subjects with various body mass index values. The designed BWDM, has an improved uncertainty of up to 9.6 dB in comparison to commercially available personal exposure meters calibrated on body. As an application, an average incident power density in the range of 26.7–90.8 μW·m−2 is measured in Ghent, Belgium. The measurements show that commercial personal exposure meters underestimate the actual exposure by a factor of up to 20.6.

Personal exposimeter for radiation assessment in real environments in the 60-GHz band

For the first time, a personal exposimeter (PEX) for 60 GHz radiation measurements is presented. The PEX is designed based on numerical simulations and both on-body and on-phantom calibration measurements to determine the antenna aperture and measurement uncertainty of the PEX. The measurement uncertainty of the PEX is quantified in terms of 50 and 95% prediction intervals of its response. A PEX consisting of three nodes (antennas) with VHH (vertical-horizontal-horizontal) polarization results in a 95% prediction interval of 6.6 dB. A 50% prediction interval of 1.3 dB (factor of 1.3) is obtained for measured power densities which is 3.1 dB lower than a single antenna experiment. The uncertainty is 19.7 dB smaller than that of existing commercial exposimeters at lower frequencies (≤6GHz).

Design and calibration of a wearable personal distributed exposimeter for LTE 800-2600 MHz downlink bands

For the first time, a wearable personal distributed exposimeter (WPDE) is designed and calibrated for the Long-Term Evolution (LTE) 800 and 2600 MHz downlink bands. The proposed WPDE has a 68% confidence interval of 4.8–5.6 dB for different number of antennas and polarizations. Measurements of the WPDE are compared and validated with a commercial exposimeter in a real environment.

Wearable multi-antenna multi-band measurement system for personal radio-frequency exposure assessment

Rising concern about the potential harmfulness of human radio-frequency exposure causes scientists to be highly interested in measuring these exposure levels. The set of measured signal levels on a map of locations is then used for epidemiological research, looking for correlation to the incidence of certain illnesses. Currently available hand-held exposimeters have the disadvantage that the measured signal levels are often significantly different from the exposure to which the human body is actually subjected. Therefore, a personal distributed exposimeter was developed and documented in this paper. Multiple on-body antennas are employed in order to measure the electromagnetic field strengths directly on the body. In this design, 11 commonly used frequency bands are measured, with front and back textile antennas for each of those bands. These 22 antennas are implemented in substrate-integrated-waveguide technology, thereby combining a compact size with a large bandwidth. The measurement system operates autonomously, through measurement, control and data-logging circuitry directly integrated onto the antennas. The textile-antenna based nodes are unobtrusively integrated into a garment, resulting in maximum comfort for the user. A measurement campaign using the system is currently underway in a number of European countries, yielding a large amount of valuable and unique data for epidemiological analyses.