Assessment of Human Exposure to Radiofrequency Electromagnetic Fields in the Vicinity of Smart Meter at 920 MHz and 2.45 GHz

We assessed human exposure to radiofrequency fields in the vicinity of a smart meter with a code developed in-house using the finite-difference time-domain method. Spatially averaged specific absorption rate (SAR) values over 10g of tissues were calculated in a human head which was placed close to a simulated half-wavelength dipole antenna. The operating frequencies were 920 MHz and 2.45 GHz, which are used for wireless communication between smart meters and concentrators. For validation, whole-body averaged SAR values calculated using the developed program code were found to be in good agreement with the calculation results. The position of the antenna in front of a human eye gives a higher SAR than other position at both 920 MHz and 2.45 GHz. In the case of a distance of 10 mm between a vertically oriented antenna and the right eye of a human, the maximum of SAR values were 0.11 W/kg and 0.37 W/kg at 920 MHz and 2.45 GHz with an input power of 20 m W, respectively. The results showed that the SAR values were well below the basic restriction of guidelines for human exposure.