Radio network planning and human exposure to electromagnetic fields

Abstract. This paper analyzes the effect of a change in cell size and of transmit power control on the human exposure to electromagnetic fields. In a simplified network configuration the well accepted COST-Hata model is considered to assess the path loss. It is shown that increasing the base station density will not generally raise the exposure but can rather help to lower it significantly. The exposure due to base stations is hardly affected by allowing a transmit power reduction at the base station for individual links. In contrast to this, it is demonstrated that transmit power control at the mobile station is a helpful means to lower the exposure efficiently.