Measurement of electromagnetic field strength of GSM antennas by using unmanned aerial vehicles

Abstract Conventional electromagnetic field (EMF) assessment around Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) antennas is typically performed from accessible ground-level or rooftop locations, which may not adequately capture the spatial variability around elevated directional antennas. This study presents an integrated unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-based platform for three-dimensional electromagnetic field-strength (EMFS) assessment, combining broadband EMFS measurements with real-time antenna detection, camera–Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) fusion, 3D mapping, telemetry and onboard computing. To enable autonomous antenna localisation, a dedicated antenna image dataset was created, and You Only Look Once (YOLO)-based detectors were evaluated for real-time antenna identification. The proposed system was validated through UAV-based and ground-based field measurements around GSM antennas. Although the measurements were collected at different spatial locations and are therefore not treated as paired observations, they provide a comparison between conventional ground sampling and spatially flexible aerial measurements. The UAV measurements exhibited substantially greater variability, including peak values exceeding 70 V/m, whereas ground measurements remained largely within 15–20 V/m. While broadband measurements alone are insufficient for formal compliance evaluation, the results suggest that fixed ground-level sampling may underestimate field variations around elevated directional antennas. The proposed platform provides a practical framework for three-dimensional EMFS monitoring, antenna inspection and compliance-oriented assessment.