Impact of Beamforming on Electromagnetic Field Exposure With Ray-Launching Simulations

In this paper, the impact of beamforming at base stations (BSs) on electromagnetic field (EMF) exposure is assessed using a GPU-based ray-launching (RL) tool in 3D urban environments. Beamforming enables the concentration of power towards user equipment (UE), which may lead to increased EMF exposure. To address EMF safety concerns, deterministic channel simulations are conducted, enabling beamforming operations and providing reliable predictions. A newly developed least-time shooting and bouncing ray (SBR) algorithm is implemented in the RL tool. Compared to a validated ray-tracing (RT) tool, the new algorithm identifies multipaths accurately while operating hundreds of times faster. Measurements were conducted to verify the simulations, however, they fall outside the scope of this paper. Beamforming is applied to multiple BSs, with power control to minimize EMF exposure while maintaining a required data rate. The results provide insights for optimizing the trade-off between data rate, EMF exposure, and energy consumption.