Measurement of non-ionising radiation according to the upcoming new guideline IEC 62232

Whats coming up on Legislation?

Limit values are available up to 300GHz, but most measurements were only taken up to 3 GHz
GSM: 900 and 1800 MHz 3G: 800 and 2100 MHz DECT: 1900 MHz WiFi: 2400 MHz

Today we are also facing more services above 3000 MHz:

WiMax: 3600 MHz WiFi: 5200 & 5800 MHz

Whats coming up on Legislation?

Even if the radiated power of transmitters is quite low, public claims for control

Whats coming up on Legislation?

Europe has already launched a new standard making it mandatory to measure EMF up to 6 GHz
Europe: EN 50492 (in place since 2009)
Basic standard for the in-situ measurement of electromagnetic field strength related to human exposure in the vicinity of base stations http://www.cenelec.eu/Cenelec/Homepage.htm

Whats coming up on Legislation?

Also on an international base there are plans to adopt the 6 GHz as a mandatory minimum frequency
International: IEC 62232 (Forecast 2011)
Determination of RF fields in the vicinity of mobile communication base stations for the purpose of evaluating human exposure. http://www.iec.ch/

Whats coming up on Legislation?

Today, test equipment is available to fulfill the actual / upcoming requirements to measure from 100 kHz to 6 GHz:
NBM with probe EF0691 from 100 kHz to 6 GHz SRM-3006 from 9kHz to 6GHz

Whats coming up on Legislation?

Beside the demand for measuring up to 6 GHz there are ongoing requirements on the measurement devices, e.g.:
Averaging versus location to minimize effect on inhomogeneous field distribution and to sense a full body exposure

Continuous Spatial Averaging: to measure over a specific distance.

Discrete Spatial Averaging: to measure at specific heights

Whats coming up on Legislation?

Beside the demand for measuring up to 6 GHz there are ongoing requirements on the measurement devices, e.g.:
Averaging versus time e.g. 6 minutes

Whats coming up on Legislation?

Measurement equipment has to be calibrated.

Whats coming up on Legislation?

The measurement uncertainty has to be taken into account:

Of the complete instrument Including antenna/probe and cable For the entire measurement range

Whats coming up on Legislation?

For GSM and 3G (UMTS) extrapolation to the maximum traffic has to be applied:
Measurement result become independent from actual traffic on the communication channel Measurement cannot cast doubts because the maximum possible output power of a base station is take into account

Use of mobile phone systems during the day

The transmitted power of a base station depends on:
Time Distance between mobile and base station Number of mobiles in the cell

Due to these unstable conditions, legislation requires an estimation to worst case scenario

Extrapolation to worst case

The extrapolation in GSM systems is based on a measurement of the control channel BCCH which transmits all the time at the same frequency and same maximum amplitude

reference: http://www.ero.dk/documentation/docs/doc98/official/pdf/ECCREC0 204.PDF

Extrapolation to worst case

First BCCH has to be identified beside traffic channels:

Minimum value (blue curve) of spectrum doesn't return noise floor Average value (green curve) gives the RMS-reading of the BCCH

BCCH Traffic

Extrapolation to worst case

Values for BCCH can be read out by:

marker or directly by a peak table

UMTS / 3G Extrapolation

Extrapolation of a 3G/UMTS signal can be done by decoding of signal and measurement of the P-CPICH
Can be done fully automatically including extrapolation factor

Whats coming up on Services? Bandwidth of services is growing rapidly! Your spectrum analyzer has to be prepared with a resolution bandwidth RBW accordingly

?
3G: bandwidth 5 MHz

GSM: bandwidth 200 kHz Analog: bandwidth 3.1 kHz