An Assessment of the Radio Frequency Electromagnetic Field Exposure from A Massive MIMO 5G Testbed

Current radiofrequency electromagnetic field (RF-EMF) exposure limits have become a critical concern for fifth-generation (5G) mobile network deployment. Regulation is not harmonized and in certain countries and regions it goes beyond the guidelines set out by the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP). Using a massive multiple-input-multiple-output (mMIMO) testbed with beamforming capabilities that is capable of mimicking realistic 5G base station (BS) performance, this paper presents an experimental and statistical assessment of its associated RF-EMF exposure within a real-world indoor environment. The mMIMO testbed has up to 128 channels with user-programmable software defined radio (SDR) capability. It could perform zero-forcing precoding after channel state information (CSI) acquisition for different beamforming scenarios with respect to the associated user terminal antenna setups and positions. With 64 active mMIMO transmit antennas, 8 beamforming scenarios have been considered for single-user (SU) and multi-user (MU) downlink communications at different locations. Using a calibrated triaxial isotropic field-probe, the received channel power heat map for each beamforming scenario was acquired and then converted into an RF-EMF heat map. The relevant RF-EMF statistics was evaluated based on the variations of beam profiles and number of users.