Electro-Magnetic Field (EMF) aware beamforming assisted by Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces

BeamForming (BF) boosts the spectral efficiency of the wireless communication link and the energy efficiency of the transmitter. However, in some cases, BF can also create regions highly exposed to Electro-Magnetic Field (EMF). In particular, in a near Line-of-Sight (LoS) propagation scenario, the power will be intense on the best propagation paths between the transmitter and the receiver. To comply with EMF thresholds, the transmitter must reduce its power, thus degrading the quality of service. This drawback is typically associated with Massive Multiple Input Multiple Output (M-MIMO) beamforming Base station (BS). However, along with the BS, a wireless operator might also deploy reflective Intelligent Surfaces and control them to shape the propagation environment. In this context, we propose to investigate a novel EMF-aware BF scheme that jointly manages the BF BS and Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces (RIS), to provide a spectrally efficient radio link under EMF constraint.