Design and Dosimetric Analysis of an Exposure Facility for Investigating Possible Effects of 2.45 GHz Wi‐Fi Signals on Human Sleep

• Published in: Bioelectromagnetics Vol. 41; no. 3; pp. 230 - 240
• Main Authors: Schmid, Gernot, Hirtl, Rene, Bueno‐Lopez, Ana, Dorn, Hans, Eggert, Torsten, Danker‐Hopfe, Heidi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States 01-04-2020
• Subjects: Brain; Double-Blind Method; EEG; Electroencephalography; Electromagnetic Fields - adverse effects; Equipment Design; Head; human study; Humans; Radiometry - instrumentation; Radiometry - methods; Reproducibility of Results; Sleep; sleep study; Wireless Technology; Wi‐Fi; WLAN; WLAN; Wi-Fi; human study; EEG; sleep study
• ISSN: 0197-8462; 1521-186X
• DOI: 10.1002/bem.22256

A new head exposure system for double‐blind provocation studies investigating possible effects of 2.45 GHz Wi‐Fi exposure on human sleep was developed and dosimetrically analyzed. The exposure system includes six simultaneously radiating directional antennas arranged along a circle (radius 0.6 m) around the test subject's head, and enables a virtually uniform head exposure, i.e. without any preferred direction of incidence, during sleep. The system is fully computer‐controlled and applies a real wireless local area network (WLAN) signal representing different transmission patterns as expected in real WLAN scenarios, i.e. phases of “beacon only” as well as phases of different data transmission rates. Sham and verum are applied in a double‐blind crossover study design and all relevant exposure data, i.e. forward and reverse power at all six antenna inputs, are continuously recorded for quality control. For a total antenna input power (sum of all antennas) of 220 mW, typical specific absorption rate (SAR) in cortical brain regions is approximately 1–2 mW/kg (mass average SAR over respective brain region), which can be seen as a realistic worst‐case exposure level in real WLAN scenarios. Taking into account variations of head positions during the experiments, the resulting exposure of different brain regions may deviate from the given average SAR levels up to 10 dB. Peak spatial 10 g average SAR in all brain and all head tissues is between 1.5–3.5 and 10.4–25 mW/kg, respectively. Bioelectromagnetics. © 2020 Bioelectromagnetics Society.