Investigation of mobile phone antenna radiation effect on the human head via Specific Absorption Rate (SAR)

Abstract

Today, modern society lives and works with wireless devices especially mobile phones due to their numerous multimedia services and applications that make life easier. These mobile phones emit electromagnetic radiations and during their usage they are usually held in close proximity to the head which means that there is constant interaction with electromagnetic fields and non-ionizing radiation. Research has been carried out to investigate the effect of mobile phone antenna radiation on the human head however, most of this research focused on the 900MHz and 1800 MHz frequencies. Over the past three decades, there has been rapid advancements in technology which have led to new networks such as the 3G, 4G and 5G that operate at completely different frequencies. This research aimed at investigating the effect of non-ionizing radiations from a mobile phone antenna on the human head via the Specific absorption rate (SAR) at the different operating frequencies that is the 900 MHz, 1800 MHz, 2100 MHz and 2600 MHz. The effects of varying the distance between the mobile phone antenna and the human head from 2-10mm in steps of 2 mm was also investigated. The High Frequency Structure Simulator was used to design the four microstrip antennas, model the human head and then assess the effect of the phone antenna radiation on the human head via the local Specific Absorption Rate. The results of this research showed that the local SAR value decreased with increase in the distance from exposure source and all the SAR values obtained were below the 1.6 W/kg threshold set by FCC.