Module APD: Absorbed Power Density 6 – 30 GHz

Zurich43 is collaborating on the Innosuisse project – Module for Exposure Assessment of the Absorbed Power Density of Millimeter Wave Wireless Devices (Module APD) – which started in October 2020. The project is led by the Department of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich) in partnership with Schmid & Partner Engineering AG.

In March 2020, the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) published new guidelines on “Limiting Exposure to Electromagnetic Fields (100 kHz to 300 GHz)”, replacing the previous ICNIRP1998 guidelines that had been the basis for most safety regulations regarding exposure to electromagnetic fields (EMF) worldwide. In the ICNIRP2020 guidelines, a new basic restriction, absorbed power density (APD, S_ab) – which is less conservative than the incident power density (S_inc) defined in ICNIRP1998 – was introduced for describing exposure to EMF at frequencies >6 GHz. The application of S_ab reduces the compliance burden on the wireless industry, allows EMF transmission of devices at higher power, ensures better signal quality, and provides rigorous test criteria for regulators. The main scientific and technological challenges of the project are (i) development of a miniaturized S_ab probe, (ii) design of conservative phantoms, and (iii) formulation of algorithms to evaluate S_ab in the skin, and (iv) establishment of novel calibration, numerical and experimental validation, and verification methods.