A New Paradigm in 5G Maximum Power Extrapolation for Human Exposure Assessment: Forcing gNB Traffic Toward the Measurement Equipment

5G base stations usually use different beams to transmit broadcast and user data. Moreover the broadcast beam is always “on air”, whilst the traffic beam is not. This represents a problem in Maximum Power Extrapolation (MPE) procedures for exposure assessment. In fact, currently adopted measurement approaches are based on the mere observation of phenomena. Recently, a different approach for MPE has been proposed by Adda
et al.
, 2020, forcing the traffic toward the measuring position by means of a dedicated User Equipment (UE). Consequently, the measurer loses the “passive” role assumed in the approach usually adopted, and acquires an active role forcing the system under test to assume the most suitable configuration. The use of beam-forcing UEs opens new exciting possibilities, since it makes it possible to take advantage of the
UE-specific signals
for the estimation for the MPE procedure. The aim of this paper is to explore the potential offered by UE-specific data structures within the MPE considering a real case regarding data acquired on a currently operative 5G base station.