A Simple and Low-Cost Technique for 5G Conservative Human Exposure Assessment

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Editor,

 

The paper entitled “A Simple and Low Cost Technique for 5G Conservative Human Exposure Assessment”, the authors investigated the use of the envelope radiation patterns to obtain  a conservative value of the field level at the measurement location.  The method is based on a Maximum Power Extrapolation approach. It allows to obtain a conservative value of the RF exposure level and can be applied to both product  compliance and product installation compliance in order to determine if the RF exposure  levels are in compliance with exposure limits and regulations. The paper is well written and useful findings are provided. However, there are few gray areas that need to be sorted before the manuscript can be considered for publication. These are:

·       The color mix in Fig 4 is not clear and should be changed

·       Fig 7 did not convey any details

·       Details of the analyser used is missing.

·       There is lack of sync, the center freq on Fig 7 is 3.6 GHz, while 2649.44 MHz was provided on line 240.

·      Information about the 5G BTS used for the measurement is absent.

·      The conclusion is well written but should be more compact and precise.

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The paragraph starting at line 36 should outline a clear methodological differentiation between the proposal in the current work and existing alternatives.

References to documents [24] and [26] are relevant, but specific details about the AAS configuration should be included in the manuscript to make it self-contained. 

The distribution and size of figures should be improved to make the manuscript most easily readable. For example, Fig. 2 and Fig. 3., presenting functions B(theta,phi) and T(theta,phi) can be put in a single figure. The same applies to Figs. 4. and 5.

In Fig.4. it is not clear if the scale is linear or dB, this should be mentioned. As the scale starts at 0, it gives the impression of being dB, which contradicts the definition and use of the value. Either way, it gives the sensation that the broadcast and transmit gain are very similar in the defined angular ranges, except at very narrow angular regions. These radiation characteristics are hard to understand without basic knowledge of the antenna configuration.

In line 312, at the end of section 4, the authors mention that previously measured values of \sqrt{F_{beam}} \approx 6.6; however, the current statistical estimation is almost twice this value. Beyond the correction factor introduced in section 5, a short discussion in section 4 giving an interpretation of the difference would be meaningful.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf