Weighted Antenna’s Azimuth for Minimal EMF With Sustainable KPIs of Multi-Technology BS

Abstract

Nowadays, significant developments in wireless technologies and solutions have led to the rapid expansion of mobile networks, and it’s expected to grow more, particularly with the launch of the Fifth Generation New Radio (5G NR). The deployment of a large number of base stations (BSs) is raising concerns about the potential for increased exposure to electromagnetic field radiation (EMF). Many international and national regulators have set guidelines and regulations to control the amount of EMF radiation. This paper presents a design model to de-concentrate the total exposure from sectorized antennas of the multi-technology base station with no drawback on network coverage level and key performance indicators (KPIs). The model applies the concept of weighted antenna’s azimuth to spread the total exposure by horizontally separating the installed antennas in the same sector. A set of simulations is conducted to calculate the reduction in total exposure ratio (TER) for widely used setups in antenna deployment for multi-technology mobile networks. Additionally, A field test was done in a life network to evaluate the proposed model in the geographical cluster, and a set of field measurements was conducted to assess the TER and the compliance distance (CD) before and after the test implementation. Further, the operation support system (OSS) records and counters were analyzed to evaluate the impact on the network coverage and capacity behavior, especially for the carried traffic and number of users. The pre-and-post results show that the TER and CD are improved by a valuable reduction after applying the proposed model. Overall, the system records show no significant impacts were registered on network coverage level and capacity performance for all transmitting technologies of the sites involved in the test.