Exposure Change at Two Mobile Radio Base Stations Due to Upgrading With 5G

Abstract

Radio frequency exposure measurements in the surroundings of two mobile radio base stations were performed before and after their upgrade to 5G to investigate exposure changes. The measurements were carried out in an urban environment in Berlin, and a 5G Dynamic Spectrum Sharing (DSS) base station and a 5G massive MIMO base station were investigated. At the first base station, a previous UMTS system was replaced by a DSS system (LTE and 5G share common resources) with unchanged total transmission power. The maximum possible exposure at five out of six measurement points remains unchanged within the measurement uncertainty. At the second base station under investigation, a 5G massive MIMO antenna technology was additionally installed to an existing mobile radio system. Here, maximum possible exposure increases of 6 to 11 dB occur at the investigated measurement points. A parallel recording of the 5G instantaneous exposure at the massive MIMO station shows that the exposure without provoking traffic load (signalization only) and at low traffic load exploits only 5-10% of the maximum exposure in terms of field strength.