Numerical Assessment of RF Human Exposure in Smart Mobility Communications

Abstract

Cars are rapidly evolving into smart connected objects that can communicate not only with the infrastructure but also with other cars through vehicle-to vehicle (V2V) communication. By the end of 2023, more than 72 million vehicles worldwide will be equipped with devices and technologies that enable to exchange data and communicate with other cars. This challenging scenario is raising cross-cutting issues, such as those related to new radio-frequency exposures of the human body also when travelling. We evaluate the Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) induced in a realistic smart mobility communication scenario operated at 5.9 GHz. V2V antennas were modeled and placed on a realistic 3D model of a city-car to numerically estimate SAR in the body regions and tissues of a human phantom (adult male) inside the car. We found that both local and whole-body average exposures were below the ICNIRP and IEEE limits for the general public in the 100 kHz-6 GHz band, being equal in the worst case scenario to 1.58 W/kg (head) and 0.008 W/kg, respectively. The highest SAR was found in the most superficial tissues (the skin) of body regions very close to the sources. The distance of the passenger from the antennas played an important role in the resulting SAR. This research has a potentially great clinical impact as it contributes to new and realistic knowledge on the exposure scenario in smart mobility communication to assess possible health effects and for the design of policies for public health management.