MEASUREMENT 2019, Proceedings of the 12th International Conference, Smolenice, Slovakia

Broadband Monitoring Measurements Analysis to Find the Main Sources

Determining the Temporal Trend of Population Exposure in Slovakia
1
Veronika Bojdová, 2ďXERã6NXUþiN2Peter Bojda, 1ďXERPtU5\EDQVNê
1
Department of Mathematics, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Constantine the
Philosopher University in Nitra, Nitra, Slovakia
2
Department of Science and Research, VUJE, a. s., Trnava, Slovakia
Email: vbojdova@ukf.sk

Abstract. Evaluation and analysis of the broadband monitoring measurements bring

knowledge about the spatial and temporal trends of the population exposure to
radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (EMF). This study analyses the dataset of EMF
monitoring measurements in 70 locations of Slovakia and aims to detect the EMF sources,
which determine the temporal trend of population exposure to radiofrequency EMF. We
propose a data analysis approach to find a pattern of the similar radiofrequency bands in all
measurement locations. Results showed that the population exposure variability over time is
generally determined by the GSM 900 and UMTS 2100 services in Slovakia. Measurement
data did not confirm the significant contribution of the wireless internet communication
services to the temporal trend of population exposure in Slovakia and did not indicate any big
discrepancies between different urban areas.
Keywords: Radiofrequency Electromagnetic Fields, Broadband Monitoring Measurements,
Incomplete Time Series Data, Fuzzy Cluster Analysis, Nonmetric Unidimensional Scaling

1. Introduction
The population exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (EMF) is an important area
of current environmental studies investigating whether there are associated health or
environmental effects. The ever-increasing volume of mobile communication demands to
thicken the network of high-frequency transmitters. This relates to the continual need of the
population exposure level monitoring, together with analyzing and evaluating measured
values. Studies published in recent years focused on different scopes: outdoor or indoor EMF
exposure level measurement and assessment [1-3], comparing outdoor EMF exposure level
measurements in several countries [4], long-term EMF exposure monitoring and EMF
exposure assessment [5-8], personal EMF exposure assessment focused on band, time,
location and activity variability [9-11].
An overview of recent articles related to the radiofrequency EMF exposure in Europe [12]
pointed out that the contribution of radio and television broadcast EMF sources to the EMF
population exposure is nowadays decreasing. On the other hand, the contribution of wireless
telecommunication EMF sources to the EMF population exposure is continuously increasing,
and future research should focus on providing the mapping of EMF exposure level on a
national level and enhancing knowledge about the particular frequency range based
distribution of EMF exposure. By [5], there is a lack of temporal analyses in EMF exposure
evaluation, and the most studies neglect the temporal dimension of measurement data.
Our study aims to detect the temporal trends in population exposure to radiofrequency EMF
and show the comparison of the 3 different types of the urban area. We investigate the dataset
of electric field strength (EFS) monitoring measurements in 100 kHz - 3 GHz radiofrequency
band from 70 locations of Slovakia.

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 MEASUREMENT 2019, Proceedings of the 12th International Conference, Smolenice, Slovakia

2. Subject and Methods

Monitoring measurements
Outdoor broadband monitoring measurements of exposure level (quantified by the EFS, in
V/m) were carried out in stages from the year 2013 to 2015, using a monitoring station Narda
AMS 8060 equipped with the electric field probe. This measuring instrument performs the
continuous monitoring of the total EFS value and also of the EFS value in 16 selective
frequency bands. It was placed for several days in each location and recorded average values
and the peak values of the preset 6-minutes time interval for each frequency band.
Measurement locations split into 3 groups related to the type of the urban area: residential
area (15 locations), amenities area (46 locations) and mixed area (8 locations).
By investigation of the measurement data, we observed that the resulting time series for all
particular locations differed in length and there were long gaps often present in the time series
(due to the power supply outages of the monitoring station). Moreover, a lot of missing values
occurred, which were the values out of the measuring range of the instrument, recorded as 0.
These values are also often treated as "absolute zeros" in computations, which leads to
misinterpretations of statistical results.

Statistical analysis
We preserved the time-dependent character of the measured EFS values. Reduction to the list
of values without the timestamp would cause the loss of important information about the
temporal variation. Due to the incomplete time series data for each location, we applied the
Fuzzy C-Means (FCM) clustering algorithm for incomplete time series [13, 14] together with
partial distance strategy (PDS) approach [15, 16], so we were able to use all non-missing
measured values in a particular measurement location. PDS approach applied to the
complexity-invariant Euclidean distance [17] allowed us to cluster the radiofrequency bands,
respecting the complexity of time series courses. Average measured values and peak
measured values were clustered separately.
Finally, we investigated the clustering results to find some general pattern of frequency bands
with similar temporal trends in each type of urban area. We used the nonmetric
unidimensional scaling (NUDS), which discovers the dimensions that underlie judgments of
(dis)similarity of the objects [18]. Frequency bands were judged as similar, if they appeared
clustered together more often, than apart.

3. 5HVXOWV
Fig. 1 shows the graphical interpretation of the NUDS results applied to the clustered
frequency bands from all 70 locations. Clustering results are transformed to the distances of
radiofrequency bands in one-dimensional space. The frequency bands displayed close (far) to
the total EFS (total, total.p) contribute the most (the less) to the total EFS time series course.
EMF sources for cellular communication GSM 900 (gsm) and UMTS 2100 (umts) have the
most similar time series courses to the total EFS in general. The radiofrequency bands for
police radio and rescue services communication (pplow, pphigh), land mobile service (tele),
surveillance radar (radar), the distribution network for TV broadcasting (mmds1), and
wireless internet communication (wifi) contribute the less to the total EFS time series course
in the most locations of Slovakia.
Radiofrequency bands for FM radio broadcasting (fmpp), civil radio transmitters (pmr) and
digital TV broadcasting (dvbt, mmds2) services are placed around the middle of the

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 MEASUREMENT 2019, Proceedings of the 12th International Conference, Smolenice, Slovakia

configurations. We cannot judge their similarity to the total EFS time series course in general.
Their similarity probably differs in particular measurement locations of Slovakia.
Finally, the EMF source GSM 1800 for cellular communication (dcs), has a different position
in configurations for average (Fig. 1a)) and peak measured values (Fig. 1b)). GSM 1800
seems to determine the measured peak EFS values more widely than the measured average
EFS values.

a) average measured values

b) peak measured values

Fig. 1. Resulting NUDS configurations of frequency bands.

NUDS results for 3 types of the urban area

Results for the residential area showed that the EMF source GSM 900 has the most similar
temporal trend to the total EFS. It is the major determinant of the total EFS both in average,
and peak measured values. The temporal trend of EFS peak measured values is further
determined by UMTS 2100 and GSM 1800. The EFS average measured values are
additionally determined by UMTS 2100 and by the EMF sources operating in 2900 -
3000 GHz range.
Results for the amenities area detected the EMF sources GSM 900 and UMTS 2100 as the
major determinants of the total EFS (both in average and peak measured values). Further, the
EMF source GSM 1800 determines the peak measured values of EFS, but the temporal trend
of EFS average measured values seems undetermined by GSM 1800.
Results for the mixed area detected the EMF sources for cellular communication GSM 900,
UMTS 2100, GSM 1800 as the major determinants of the total EFS (both in average and peak
measured values). The radiofrequency band for civil radio transmitters determines the average
measured values of EFS the less but determines the peak measured values of EFS quite
enough.
Radiofrequency bands for police radio and rescue services communication, surveillance radar,
the distribution network for TV broadcasting, land mobile service and wireless internet
communication do not significantly determine the temporal trend of EFS (both in average and
peak measured values) in all particular types of the urban area.

4. Discussion and Conclusions

Our results (agreeing with [12]) showed not only that the EMF sources for cellular
communication contribute to the population exposure in Slovakia the most, but also that they

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 MEASUREMENT 2019, Proceedings of the 12th International Conference, Smolenice, Slovakia

determine the temporal trend of the EMF population exposure in the most measurement
locations. Long-term population exposure variability over time is generally determined by the
GSM 900 and UMTS 2100 services in Slovakia. Analysis of the measurement data did not
confirm the significant contribution of the wireless internet communication services to the
temporal trend of population exposure in Slovakia. The GSM 1800 service significantly
determines only the temporal trend of peak EFS values over time in Slovakia.
Results did not confirm any big discrepancies between 3 different types of the urban area. The
EMF sources for cellular communication GSM 900, GSM 1800 and UMTS 2100 determine
the temporal trend of population exposure in all types of the urban area the most.
The proposed approach is applicable when the long-term monitoring measurements contain
many missing values.

Acknowledgements
This work has been created thanks to support under the operational program Research and
Development for the project: Protection of the Slovak Population against the Effects of
Electromagnetic Fields, ITMS Code: 26220220145, co-funded by the European Regional
Development Fund.
We support research activities in Slovakia /
The project is co-financed from EU sources.

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