TY - JOUR
T1 - RF-EMF Exposure Assessments in Greek Schools to Support Ubiquitous IoT-Based Monitoring in Smart Cities
AU - Panagiotakopoulos, Theodor
AU - Kiouvrekis, Yiannis
AU - Misthos, Loukas Moysis
AU - Kappas, Constantine
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2013 IEEE.
PY - 2023
Y1 - 2023
N2 - Everyday living environments concentrate a growing amount of wireless communications leading to increased public concern for radiofrequency (RF) electromagnetic fields (EMF) exposure. Recent technological advances are turning the focus on Internet of Things (IoT) systems that enable automated and continuous real-time EMF monitoring, facing however several challenges mainly stemming from infrastructural costs. This paper seeks to provide a comprehensive view of RF-EMF levels in Greece and evidence-based decision support for a spatially prioritized deployment of an IoT RF-EMF monitoring system. We applied the stratified sampling method to estimate Electric Field Strength (EFS) in the 27MHz-3GHz range in 661 schools. Three different residential areas were considered, i.e. urban, semi-urban and rural. Results showed that the 95% confidence interval for the EFS is (0.40, 0.44) with central value equal to the sample mean 0.42 V/m. We obtained strong evidence that the mean EFS value for all Greek schools is 0.42, which is 52 times lower than the Greek safety limit and equal to 1% of international limits. Mean EFS values of individual residential areas were also significantly below safety limits. Rural areas displayed the highest EFS peaks comprising the strongest candidate to start the deployment of an IoT RF-EMF monitoring system from.
AB - Everyday living environments concentrate a growing amount of wireless communications leading to increased public concern for radiofrequency (RF) electromagnetic fields (EMF) exposure. Recent technological advances are turning the focus on Internet of Things (IoT) systems that enable automated and continuous real-time EMF monitoring, facing however several challenges mainly stemming from infrastructural costs. This paper seeks to provide a comprehensive view of RF-EMF levels in Greece and evidence-based decision support for a spatially prioritized deployment of an IoT RF-EMF monitoring system. We applied the stratified sampling method to estimate Electric Field Strength (EFS) in the 27MHz-3GHz range in 661 schools. Three different residential areas were considered, i.e. urban, semi-urban and rural. Results showed that the 95% confidence interval for the EFS is (0.40, 0.44) with central value equal to the sample mean 0.42 V/m. We obtained strong evidence that the mean EFS value for all Greek schools is 0.42, which is 52 times lower than the Greek safety limit and equal to 1% of international limits. Mean EFS values of individual residential areas were also significantly below safety limits. Rural areas displayed the highest EFS peaks comprising the strongest candidate to start the deployment of an IoT RF-EMF monitoring system from.
KW - Internet of Things
KW - Radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMF)
KW - RF-EMF exposure in schools
KW - RF-EMF monitoring
KW - smart cities
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85147270067&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/ACCESS.2023.3237970
DO - 10.1109/ACCESS.2023.3237970
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85147270067
SN - 2169-3536
VL - 11
SP - 7145
EP - 7156
JO - IEEE Access
JF - IEEE Access
ER -