Statistical model of the human RF exposure in small cell environment

Small cells are one of the solutions to face the imperative demand on increasing mobile data traffic. They are low-powered base stations installed close to the users to offer better network services and to deal with increased data traffic. In this paper, the global exposure induced in such networks as a whole from user equipment and base stations has been investigated. As the small cell is close to the user, the propagation channel becomes highly variable and strongly susceptible by environmental factors such as the road traffic. An innovative statistical path loss model is constructed based on measurements on two French commercial LTE small cells, operating at LTE 1800 MHz and 2600 MHz. This statistical path loss model is then used to assess global exposure of the adult proportion of a population in a scenario composed of a street lined with buildings and indoor and outdoor data users.