ELECTROMAGNETIC DETECTION SYSTEM OF CELLULAR
PHONES ABOARD AIRCRAFT
M. D’Amore, S. Greco, D. A. Lampasi, L. Podestà, M. S. Sarto
Department of Electrical Engineering
University of Rome “Sapienza”, via Eudossiana, 18 – 00184 Roma
E-mail: mariasabrina.sarto@uniroma1.it
Abstract: The numerical prediction of the
electromagnetic field distribution and the experimental
detection of cellular phones onboard aircraft need an
accurate numerical simulations and the implementation
of a distributed network of sensors having a well
defined sensitivity and frequency selectivity. The aim
of this work is to present the feasibility of such
network by means of numerical simulations and the
results of the experimental characterization of a
prototype of sensor to be used aboard aircraft.
I. INTRODUCTION
Portable electronic devices (PEDs) can cause
electromagnetic interference (EMI) to electronic
instrumentation. For flight safety and security it is
recommended a responsible use of PEDs onboard
aircraft, especially during the most critical stages as
take-off and landing. In particular, cell phones are
asked to be switched-off at any time while aircraft
doors are closed. In such situation, for obvious
reasons, radio frequency scrambles are not indicated,
while the use of sensors for the detection and
localization of the disturbing apparatus is highly
recommended [1]-[4].
A two-year research project was carried out to
investigate the feasibility of a system for the detection
and the localization of PEDs, operating without
authorization onboard aircraft. After a feasibility study
on the Airbus 320 family, the attention was focused on
cellular phones, also because they are widespread and
can be left turned on, unintentionally or not, more than
other PEDs [5], [6].
In general, the numerical prediction of the
electromagnetic field (EM) and the experimental
detection of cellular phones onboard aircraft require
the development of an accurate numerical simulation
procedure and the realization of a complex system of
sensors. Moreover, the sensors should have an
appropriate sensitivity and selectivity over the radio-
frequency spectrum. The adopted prototype is made of
widespread electronics, is low-cost, small, embeddable
and it can be easily connected into a sensing network.
Moreover, the sensitivity of the sensing unit can be
varied selectively to allow the network of sensors to
locate the disturbing source. Several studies show that
an aircraft can be assumed to behave like a
reverberation chamber (RC) having a low quality
factor (Q). For this reason, to test the sensor into a
realistic EM environment, an innovative procedure
was developed in order to investigate the sensitivity of
the sensing unit into the RC of the Department of
Electrical Engineering of the University of Rome
“Sapienza”. This approach is even more indicated in
case the directivity of the sensing unit to be tested is
not well known, because into an RC the EM field is
statistically uniform, isotropic and depolarized.
Moreover, the position and the orientation of the
emitting devices, in particular cellular phones, are
unknown and variable, and an RC approach can easily
overcome these inconvenient. Firstly, the Q of the RC
was properly lowered to reproduce the characteristics
of the EM environment of a fuselage [8]-[10]. The RC
was stimulated with a modulated signal exciting the
same frequency range of a GSM signal. Then, the
sensitivity of the sensing unit was measured as the
“probability of occurrence”, intended as the number of
positive occurrence over the number of paddle steps
for a given value of the electric field, estimated by
averaging the field measured over a complete
revolution of the RC tuner. The sensitivity curves for
the sensor under test were measured and calculated for
increasing frequencies, power supplies and field levels,
to derive an accurate characterization of the sensing
unit. In this paper the measurement procedure will be
explained, including the characterization of the low-Q
RC, the exciting signals and the measurement set-up.
Moreover, the results on the sensitivity of the sensor
for cellular phones operating at 900 MHz will be
presented and discussed in details.
II. NUMERICAL MODELLING
In order to investigate the distribution of the EM field
generated by a PED inside a fuselage of a commercial
aircraft, a numerical procedure was developed. The
Aircraft Electromagnetic Analysis Tool (AEMAT) is
based on a finite time domain technique (FTDT) and
has an user-friendly graphical interface. In such tool it
is possible to define a discrete model of the aircraft
and to display the sampling grid and the results of the
numerical simulations [5], [6]. The adopted approach
allows a reduction of the computation time and to
optimize the computational resources by means of
appropriate boundary conditions and calculus domain
truncations. A critical aspect of such procedure
concerns the selection of the spatial discretization step
to adopt for the numerical calculations.
 Periodicity
Cella cell
periodica
Fig. 1. Section of the fuselage of an Airbus 320-200.

In fact, if the apertures of the fuselage, the windows
for instance, are not well represented by the spatial
discretization, the energy radiated by the EM sources
is trapped inside the fuselage leading to an
overestimation of the EM field. A good accuracy in the
prediction of the radiated electric field is obtained, at
900 MHz, if the source wavelength λ is at least 20
times the discretization step δ [6]. In the following, the
section of the fuselage of an Airbus 320-200, including
three windows, as shown in Fig. 1 and Fig. 2(a), is
considered as representative of the technique.
Piano di simmetria
plane
determined by means of AEMAT, in order to
investigate the feasibility of a system of sensors with
auto-adaptive sensitivity. To this aim, several
configurations, sketched in Fig. 3, were implemented.
It is assumed that the active sources, simulated by
electric dipoles and supplied by a pulse having unitary
amplitude, can be found in every position shown in
Fig. 3 and indicated as S1-S9.
Table I reports the maximum values of the electric
field calculated in the observation points S1-S9, except
for the source position, during the transient, when only
one source is radiating. Fig. 4 and Fig. 5 show the
spatial maps of the amplitude of the electric field in the
(x, y) plane, at a generic time, inside the simulated

fuselage section in the hypothesis that the S1, S5 and

S1, S3, S8 sources are active respectively.
Symmetry

z The data obtained from the simulations were

x elaborated with a statistical approach. The performed
y
analysis revealed that, if in the considered periodical
Condizioni di periodicità x cell one or two sources, randomly positioned, are
Spacial periodicity
spaziale active, the standard deviation, calculated on the
Piani di periodicità
Periodicity plane maxima of the electric field in the observation points,
presents the same magnitude of the maxima itself. If
(a) (b) three or more sources are activated at the same time in
Fig. 2. Schematic configuration (a) and section (b) of a the same cell, the standard deviation is at least two
fuselage cell including only three windows and three times less than the maximum field.
lines of seats.
Table I – Position of the maximum value of the
electric field calculated with only one radiating source
in several positions.
Posizione sorgente Valore massimo di campo Posizione massimo di
Source position
attiva Max Eelettrico
field value
(mV/m)mV/m Max E campo
field position
S1 4.42 S2
S2 2.46 S5
S3 2.46 S2
S4 2.68 S6
S5 3.37 S5
Source
: sorgente S1-S9 Sensor
S1-S9 : sensore S6 3.02 S3
S7 2.39 S4
S8 3.29 S7
S9 2.39 S6
Fig. 3. Example of the configurations investigated with
one, two or three active EM sources. The positions
indicated by S1-S9 represent the observation points of
the EM field where the detection sensors are supposed From this considerations, a distributed network of
to be placed. sensors positioned in correspondence of each
observation point shown in Fig. 3, would result
effective for the detection of a maximum of two PEDs
emitting at the same time in the same cell.
The distribution of the EM field generated by one or Analogously, a distribution of sensors positioned in
more sources emitting at the same time was correspondence of each seat, would be suitable for an
Airbus 320-200 (Fig.1)), if no more than 35 emitting
sources radiate at the same time in the whole aircraft.
It should be noted that the analysis was carried out
considering an empty fuselage in order to minimize the
computational time. Further studies are ongoing to
account for the influence of passengers and onboard
instrumentation on the EM field distribution [5].
fundamentally acts as an amplitude demodulator. For
this reason the sensing unit is able to detect only
modulated signals while pure sinewaves are neglected.
An external voltage supply V1 is necessary to polarize
the transistor and it can be used to change the sensor
sensitivity by adding a voltage offset to the incoming
signal to be revealed.

Periodicity
Piani di
periodicità
plane Sources
Sorgenti

Symmetry
Piano di
plane
simmetria

Fig. 6. Schematic of the sensor.

mV/m
V/m

Fig. 4. Map of the amplitude of the electric field in the
(x,y) plane at a generic instant inside the periodic cell,
generated by two radiating sources S1 and S5.
Periodicity
Piani di Sources
Sorgenti
plane
periodicità
Symmetry
Piano di
plane
simmetria
mV/m
V/m
Fig. 5. Map of the amplitude of the electric field in the
(x,y) plane at a generic instant inside the periodic cell,
generated by three radiating sources S1, S3, and S8.
III. EM FIELD SENSOR
The prototype of sensor designed for the detection of a
cellular phone operating onboard an aircraft is made of
widespread electronics, is small, cheap, and it is
connectable to other sensors of the same kind in order
to realize a network for the localization of the
disturbing device [7]. Fig. 6 shows the schematic of
the sensor. The core of the sensing unit is the BJT
transistor Q1 where the base-emitter junction
Figures 7 and 8 show the prototype of the sensor and
the internal circuitry respectively. The characterization
tests were carried out in different operating conditions.
In particular, the sensitivity of the sensing unit was
tested in open space and in a screened environment in
presence of a real emitting GSM cellular phone
positioned at increasing distances from the sensor up
to 5 m. After this experiment, in order to test in a more
realistic environment, a systematic test procedure was
implemented in the reverberation chamber (RC) of the
Laboratory of Electromagnetic Compatibility of the
Department of Electrical Engineering of the University
of Rome “Sapienza”. The aim of this test was to
investigate the behavior of the sensor when operating
in real a reverberating environment, similar to the one
characterizing the inside of a medium-size aircraft
fuselage [9]. In particular the probability of activation
was defined as the ratio of the number of activations
over the number of paddle positions of a complete
stirrer revolution. This parameter is defined as a
function of the mean value of the electric field
measured over a complete stirrer revolution.
The tests were performed with the RC in tuned mode,
considering 50 steps per revolution. The RC was
excited with a sinusoidal carrier at 900 MHz,
modulated by a pulse having period T=4.615 ms and
duration τ=577 µs in order to reproduce the
characteristics of the GSM signal that the sensor is
able to reveal. The tests were performed for increasing
input powers in order to produce increasing EM fields
in the RC. The electric field, the received power and
the activation status of the sensor were measured and
registered in the working volume of the chamber. The
probability of activation was then calculated from such
measurements. The graph in Fig. 9 shows the
probability of activation as a function of the average
electric field.
 performed on the data obtained by means of the
numerical simulations demonstrated that for a
commercial aircraft a network of selective sensors
positioned among each seat should be effective for the
localization of multiple sources, approximately up to
35, activated at the same time. A first characterization
of the performances of the sensing unit was carried out
in open space and in a screened environment by
exciting it with a real cellular phone. A statistical
sensitivity curve was obtained by means of
measurements performed in a reverberation chamber
excited by an amplitude-modulated signal simulating a
GSM signal for increasing field levels.

Fig. 7. The sensor in its package.

Fig. 8. The circuitry of the sensing prototype.
11
Probabilità di intervento del sensore
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