Estimation of the average power density in the vicinity of cellular base-station collinear array antennas

Abstract

This paper investigates the character of the average power density in the close proximity of base-station antennas, where human exposure to electromagnetic fields radiated from such radiofrequency (RF) sources is the highest. The concept of average power density is used since, in proximity of a large array antenna, the direction of the power flow at a given point is not readily predictable because of the substantially diverging path lengths and direction of propagation of the energy arriving from different array elements. This quantity Is shown to have a marked cylindrical decay near the antennas, which converts to spherical in the far field. On this basis, a set of simple prediction formulas is derived to allow the estimation of the average power density with good precision. The latest IEEE C95.1-1999 Standard for RF safety calls for spatially averaged measurements of incident power density to verify compliance to maximum permissible exposure limits. The advantage of using the concept of average power density and the resulting prediction formulas is that the evaluation of the exposure of humans near cellular base-station antennas becomes extremely simple during surveys when large computerized scanning equipment may not be available.