MICROWAVE RADIATION HAZARD AND SOLUTION

Chetankumar patil, AP
Department of E&C
AGMRCET
VARUR 581207
chetan.patils011@gmail.com

Rajashekhargouda patil ,AP

Department of E&C
AGMRCET
VARUR 581207
rajashekharpatil86@gmail.com

Abstract - Health risk are there due to radiation from cell

phone and cell tower. Radiation effects are divided into
thermal and non-thermal effects. A cell phone transmits 1 to 2
Watt of power in the frequency range of 824 - 849 MHz
(CDMA), 890 915MHz (GSM900) and 1710 1780 MHz
(GSM1800). A cell phone has a SAR (Specific Absorption
Rate) rating .SAR limit for cell phones is 1.6W/Kg .which is
actually for 6 minutes per day usage. In India, we have
adopted very relaxed radiation norms of 4.7 W/m2 for
GSM900, whereas serious health effects have been noted at as
low as 0.0001 W/m2 = 100 W/m2. One of the first steps to be
taken is to tighten the radiation norms .In second approach
LTE MIMO antennas in a mobile handset has been
introduced whose radiation is very less. SAR is also presented
with chassis lengths, as the SAR distribution also changes
with different chassis lengths, this parameter becomes more
important for MIMO antennas.
Keywords - Long Term Evolution( LTE), Specific Absorption
Rate(SAR),Federal
Communication
Commission(FCC),
Single-Input Single Output(SISO), International Commission
on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP), World
Health Organization (WHO), ITU-T ( Telecommunication
Standardization
Sector
of
the
International
Telecommunications Union), Multi Input Multi Output
(MIMO),CST(Computer Simulation Technology)

I.

INTRODUCTION

All over the world, people have been debating

about associated health risk due to radiation from cell
phone and cell tower. Radiation effects are divided into
thermal and non-thermal effects. Thermal effects are
similar to that of cooking in the microwave oven. Nonthermal effects are not well defined but it has been reported
that nonthermal effects are 3 to 4 times more harmful than
thermal effects. A cell phone has a SAR (Specific
Absorption Rate) rating. In USA, SAR limit for cell phones
is 1.6W/Kg which is actually for 6 minutes per day usage.
It has a safety margin of 3 to 4, so a person should not use
cell phone for more than 18 to 24 minutes per day. This
information is not commonly known to the people in India,
so crores of people use cell phones for more than an hour
per day without realizing its associated health hazards.
. Even organizations like WHO, ICNIRP, FCC,
etc. have not recommended stricter safe radiation
guidelines, whereas several countries have adopted

Krishakanth Adur,AP
Department of E&C
SITAR
Chennapatna
adur.krishna@gmail.com

radiation norms, which are 1/100th to 1/1000th of these

values based on their studies. The operators providing
wireless communication should consider seriously this
study and ITU-T recommendations in order to keep the
operation of base station transceivers in compliance with
regulations concerning environmental protection against
non-ionizing radiation. Further, it important to note that the
present threshold limits prescribed by the ICNIRP are
considered to be rather too generous. Majority of these
towers are mounted near the residential and office
buildings to provide good mobile phone coverage to the
users. These cell towers transmit radiation 24x7, so people
living within 10s of meters from the tower will receive
10,000 to 10,000,000 times stronger signal than required
for mobile communication
As we know, a small volume radiator like a cell
phone antenna is fairly sensitive to its nearby environment
such as the users hand and head. The antennas current
density distribution, efficiency and other parameters can
change a lot when the user holds the handset in different
ways. At the same time, regulations exist in many countries
for the radiation of a handset. Due to the great demand for
high-speed wireless communication, the Multi Input Multi
Output (MIMO) antenna systems have rapidly been given
increased attention, as it can enhance the channel capacity
effectively without consuming more power or bandwidth.
So far, the MIMO antenna system has been implemented
inside laptops and routers, but not yet in the area of mobile
handsets. However, MIMO antennas in a mobile handset
will be realized in the next few years, in order to satisfy the
requirement of the LTE communications, and many studies
on MIMO antennas have been done .LTE communications
require that the MIMO antennas can operate in both uplink
and downlink, this raises a new challenge for antenna
design. how to mount multiple antennas in a limited space,
and how to evaluate and optimize the interaction between
the handset and the users body.
Similar to a single antenna, a MIMO antenna
system also emits electromagnetic energy, and the allowed
level of this emission is limited in many countries.
However, compared with a Single Input Single Output

(SISO) antenna system, a MIMO antenna system is more

complicated as it has to work under more operation modes.
For example, the multiple antennas would operate
simultaneously in a MIMO mode, but in some cases the
antennas also need to be capable for operating as a SISO
antenna system. Sometimes, these antennas even need to
form an antenna array for beam forming. Furthermore, the
interaction between multiple elements has to be considered,
as it can change the radiation performance \as well. So far,
only a few studies have been done on the SAR of MIMO
antennas
II.

RADIATION FROM THE CELL

TOWER

A GSM900 base station antenna transmits in the

frequency range of 935 - 960 MHz. This frequency band of
25 MHz is divided into twenty sub-bands of 1.2 MHz,
which are allocated to various operators. There may be
several carrier frequencies (1 to 5) allotted to one operator
with upper limit of 6.2 MHz bandwidth. Each carrier
frequency may transmit 10 to 20W of power
one operator may transmit 50 to 100W of power
and there may be 3-4 operators on the same roof top or
tower, thereby total transmitted power may be 200 to
400W. In addition, directional antennas are used, which
typically may have a gain of around 17 dB (numeric value
is 50), so effectively, several KW of power may be
transmitted in the main beam direction.
III.

Radiated power density from the cell

tower

Pd=( Pt X > 4 r 2)
(1)
where, Pt = Transmitter power in Watts,Gt = Gain of transmitting
antenna,R = Distance from the antenna in meters
For Pt = 20 W, Gt = 17 dB = 50, Pd for various values of R is
given in Table 1.
Distanc
e R(m)
1
3
5
10
50
100
500

Power density Pd in
W/m2
79.6
8.84
3.18
0.796
0.0318
0.008
0.000318

Power density Pd in
uW/m2
79,600,000
8,840,000
3,180,000
796,000
31,800
7,960
318

Table 1. Power density Pd at a distance R is given

IV.

Theoretical and Measured Radiated

power
To measure the power at a distance R, an antenna is used to
receive the power and a spectrum analyzer or power meter
is used to measure received power. Power Received Pr by
an antenna at a distance R is given by:
Pr

Pt

Gt

Gr

4 r2

(2)
Received power is directly proportional to the transmitted
power, gain of transmitting and receiving antennas, and
square of wavelength of the signal and it is inversely
proportional to square of distance.
V.
Biological effects of microwave
radiation
When a human body is exposed to the electromagnetic
radiation, it absorbs radiation, because human body
consists of 70% liquid. It is similar to that of cooking in the
microwave oven where the water in the food content is
heated first. Microwave absorption effect is much more
significant by the body parts which contain more fluid
(water, blood, etc.), like the brain which consists of about
90% water. Effect is more pronounced where the
movement of the fluid is less, for example, eyes, brain,
joints, heart, abdomen, etc. Also, human height is much
greater than the wavelength of the cell tower transmitting
frequencies, so there will be multiple resonances in the
body, which creates localized heating inside the body. This
results in boils, drying up of the fluids around eyes, brain,
joints, heart, abdomen, etc. There are several health hazards
associated with cell phones and cell towers.
VI.
ESTIMATION OF EXPOSURE
LEVEL
Estimation of exposure levels can be done either
by measurement or by numerical calculations or by
electromagnetic software simulations. All these methods
have almost similar level of uncertainty and accuracy
depending on the method and equipment or software used.
Calculation of equivalent isotropically radiated power
(EIRP) is an efficient method for the estimation of
exposure level of a base station antenna. In this method,
site survey is done and several parameters like location
parameters, operating parameters, and environment
parameters are recorded.
Now, estimation of EIRP and threshold of EIRP
(EIRPth) are done at various publicly accessible points (on
ground, on rooftop, at adjacent building, etc.) in the
environment surrounding the base station antenna. The
EIRP for an operator service is given by EIRP of control
channel (e.g. BCCH channel for GSM and common-pilot
channel for CDMA/UMTS) as:
EIRPBCCH = Pt - Pl -(L x CL ) +G
(3)
where Pt = Transmitter output power, Pl = Combiner loss,
L=RF Cable length, CL=RF Cable loss per 100m length,
G =Antenna gain.

Now total EIRP of the particular service of an

operator is given by
EIRPTotal = EIRPBCCH{1+ m x n x (N -1)}
(4)
where m = diversity factor, n = ATPC factor, N = number
of carriers per sector in worst case, e.g., if two sectors are
having three carriers while the third one has four carriers,
the value of N would be four.
VII.

Possible Solutions to reduce the ill

effects of cell tower radiation
One of the first steps to be taken is to tighten the
radiation norms and yet it should be practical enough to be
cost effective without causing too much inconvenience to
the users. It is recommended that maximum cumulative
power density allowed should be reduced with immediate
effect to 0.1 W/m, which should then be subsequently
reduced to 0.01 W/m within a year, so that network
planning can be carried out in a phased manner. It must be
noted that a few countries have even adopted 0.001 W/m
or lower, so our proposed recommendation is higher than
these countries to keep it cost effective. All the operators
must be strictly instructed that power density inside
residential or office buildings, schools, hospitals, and at
common frequently visited places should be within these
guidelines
In addition, repeaters or signal enhancers or
boosters may have to be installed where signal is weak.
Care must be taken that maximum power transmitted by
these must not exceed 0.1W because of their close
proximity to the users.
VIII.
Antenna Configuration and
Simulation Setup to optimize the SAR
performance
Based on the LTE standard, dual-element MIMO
antenna in a mobile terminal is required. In this thesis, four
designs of MIMO antenna with dual elements are presented
and their SAR performances are studied separately: dual
semi ground free PIFAs, ground free co-located antenna,
dual on ground (OG) PIFAs in parallel position and dual on
ground (OG) PIFAs in orthogonal position. Their schematic
diagrams are shown in Fig. 1. In order to simulate the real
mobile phone, a plastic box is utilized to cover each MIMO
antenna.
For -6dB specification, the semi ground free PIFA
and co-located antenna can cover 750MHz to 960MHz in
low band, and 1700MHz to 2700MHz in high band. The
bandwidth of the two designs of dual OG PIFAs is between
750MHz and 850MHz in low band, and 1700MHz to
2200MHz in high band. Considering their S parameter and
the required band for LTE, we study four frequency points
for each MIMO antenna,750MHz, 850MHz, 1900Mhz and
2600MHz for semi ground free PIFA and co-located
antenna; 750MHz, 850MHz, 1900Mhz and 2100MHz for
parallel OG PIFA and orthogonal OG PIFA.

Fig. 1. The diagrams of the proposed antennas: (a) dual

semi ground free PIFA, (b) ground free co-located antenna,
(c) dual on ground PIFA in parallel position, and (d) dual
on ground PIFA in vertical position.
The simulation setup for the SAM(Specific
Anthropomorphic Mannequin)head phantom is shown in
Fig. 2.The antenna is placed in cheek touch position in
accordance with the CTIA standards . The acoustic part of
the cell phone needs to be placed at the middle of the pinna
(in our study, the speaker of the cell phone is set to be
10.5mm lower than the top of the cell phone case), the
body of the cell phone has to touch the cheek, and the
perpendicular line of the mobile handset is lined up with
the mouth back to pinna line on the head phantom. The
antenna chassis is 4.5mm away from the pinna. For colocated antennas, dual elements are placed at the bottom of
the chassis in order to optimize the SAR performance. For
the vertical OG PIFA, the vertical antenna is placed at the
top of the chassis. For the flat phantom, the antenna is
placed 10mm above the phantom [ and radiates downward
to it. Based on the LTE standard, the input powers for the
antenna are set at 24dBm and 21dBm for low band (750
MHz, 850MHz) and high band (1900 MHz, 2100MHz,
2600MHz), respectively.

Fig. 2.The CST simulation model.(a)side view;

(b)top view.

IX.
SAR Reduction
Based on the study above, we can present two
examples of SAR reduction for mobile phone antennas. For
stand alone SAR, as mentioned, the distribution of the
current is a deciding factor. Here, we use the slot in the
middle of the ground plane to change the current
distribution, and reduce the SAR. The example is shown in
Fig.3.

Fig. 3 Stand alone SAR in 0.75GHz for (a) original

structure, and (b) improved structure
In Fig. 3, we use a monopole antenna as an
example. In order to reduce the SAR, we cut a slot in the
middle of the chassis, and we can see that the distribution
of the SAR become more uniform and the value is reduced
from 1.58 W/kg to 1.45 W/kg. The second case is for
simultaneous SAR. As mentioned, the distance between hot
spots is quite important; therefore, the antenna and its
ports positions must be optimized. Here, in order to study
these phenomena, we take a monopole with OG PIFA
MIMO antenna that operates in 1.9GHz.

Fig. 4 Stand alone SAR in 0.75GHz for (a) original

structure, and (b) improved structure
Fig. 4 in this case, for the original structure, the two hot
spots are overlapping, and the simultaneous SAR can reach
3.6W/kg. In the improved structure, the OG PIFA is turned
180 degrees, and the port of the OG PIFA is moved further
to the monopole.
We can clearly see that the two hot spots are
separated, and the simultaneous SAR is reduced to
1.3W/kg. From the example above, we can see that the
current distribution and physical distance between antenna
ports are two important factors for the SAR value. For the

antenna engineer, these factors must be considered before

they propose a new structure.
X.
CONCLUSIONS
In this paper, providing wireless communication should
consider seriously this study and ITU-T recommendations.
Even organizations like WHO, ICNIRP, FCC, etc. have to
recommend stricter safe radiation guidelines. The
interaction between the users body and LTE MIMO
antennas in a mobile handset has been studied, which
shows a lot of interesting phenomena. To meet the
requirements from the governments and mobile network
operators (MNO), the SAR and body loss of the antenna
have to be optimized to an acceptable level.
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