Measurement and analysis of human exposure to electromagnetic fields in the GSM band Nicola Pasquino 1 Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Information Technologies, University of Naples Federico II, Via Claudio 21, 80125 Naples, Italy article info Article history: Received 16 February 2017 Received in revised form 27 April 2017 Accepted 2 June 2017 Keywords: Electromagnetic radiation Human exposure Measurements Statistical analysis GSM abstract The paper presents the results of an experimental activity aimed at investigating the statistical properties of the exposure to electromagnetic radiation generated by the GSM cellular system. Many channels radi- ated by sources at different distance from the measurement point were monitored for seven days to obtain long-term samples of the peak and average rms strength over six minutes. The purpose of the research is to shed new light on the time patterns and amplitude distribution of the exposure level, with the intent to study: (1) the relationship between peak and average strength so that the worst case expo- sure can related to the average exposure, which is the quantity that measurement standards focus on; (2) variations of exposure with traffic conditions. Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Human exposure to electromagnetic radiation (EMR) has been a recurrent research topic over the past decades for the alleged haz- ard to human health for both occupational and general public exposure. Medical research, experimental evidence and epidemiol- ogy studies resulted in the International Commission on Non- Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) guidelines published in 1998 [1] (and revised in 2003 [2] and 2009 [3] for the low and high frequency range, respectively) that the European Council has adopted as the main reference for its Recommendation published in July 1999 to establish the maximum field strength of EMR between 0 Hz and 300 GHz for general public exposure [4]. Although it is only a recommendation and not a directive [5], the document has been promptly considered by many International and National guidelines or regulations as the reference to rely upon for limiting exposure. Technical bodies have then issued specific measurement standards [6–8] indicating the most appropriate procedure to assess exposure levels, usually suggesting a 6-min average although an extrapolation procedure is often suggested to assess the worst-case exposure. For the GSM system, such pro- cedure relies upon the measurement of the Broadcast Control Channel (BCCH) strength which is then multiplied by k ¼ ffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi 1 þ n TCH p , where n TCH is the total number of Traffic Channels (TCH) associated to the measured (BCCH). Because of the pervasive presence of wireless networks over the territory, population is mostly concerned with high frequency radi- ation exposure, which has therefore gained quite a large interest in the scientific community. More specifically, GSM, UMTS and LTE mobile systems and, although to a lower extent, wifi systems are the sources that are most frequently studied. The European Union itself is deeply involved in research programs dedicated to electro- magnetic fields exposure and has recently funded the Low EMF Exposure Future Networks (LEXNET) project [9] under the FP7 pro- gram, to reduce by 50% at least the exposure of population to (EMR) without compromising the quality of service. An extremely extensive study conducted on health effects is The Interphone Study [10] by the WHO/International Agency for Research on Cancer(IARC), the main results of which can be found in [11,12] and are briefly summarized in [13]: A reduced odds ratio 2 for glioma and meningioma related to ever having been a regular mobile phone user possibly reflects participation bias or other methodological limitations. No elevated odds ratio for glioma or meningioma was observed more than 10 years after first phone use. There were sugges- tions of an increased risk of glioma, and much less so meningioma, in the highest decile of cumulative call time, in subjects who reported usual phone use on the same side of the head as their tumor and, for glioma, for tumors in the temporal lobe. Biases and errors limit the strength of the conclusions that can be drawn from these analyses and prevent a causal interpretation. More informally, there is no evidence of a link http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.measurement.2017.06.003 0263-2241/Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1 Chief Scientist at the Electromagnetic Compatibility Lab. E-mail address: nicola.pasquino@unina.it 2 The odds ratio is a measure of relative risk. In other terms, an odds ratio of x means that people exposed have x times the risk of non-exposed people. Measurement 109 (2017) 373–383 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Measurement journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/measurement