Jun 5, 2017
IEC TC106 Meeting Update
Update from the IEC TC106 Meetings in London, UK (May 22-26, 2017)
Great progress has been achieved towards the publication of multiple standards on electromagnetic exposure assessment. Project teams of IEC Technical Committee 106 met in London/UK on May 22 – 26 to finalize IEC 62209-3 and the revision of IEC 62209-U. The Technical Report on 5G exposure measurements is well underway for completion in October. The standards are now more flexible, open for innovations in testing equipment but remain very stringent in terms of requirements.
Members of the IEC 106 standard groups at the British Standards Institution (BSI) in West London.
IEC 62209-U
All major technical aspects of IEC 62209-U could be completed and greed on in London. It will combine specific absorption rate (SAR) measurement standards of wireless devices used at the head and body. For the first time, specific phantoms have also been included to cover wrist-worn devices, virtual reality head getar and devices worn on other parts of the body. During the recent meetings, the team approved extending the frequency range to cover 4 MHz to 10 GHz. The extension of the upper frequency limit from 6 GHz to 10 GHz fills an important gap in SAR measurement against existing ICNIRP limits. The IT’IS Foundation led the work on uncertainty analysis and interlaboratory comparisons for the extended frequency range.
Faster SAR evaluation without sacrificing accuracy is made possible with updated protocols in IEC 62209-U. ISED Canada presented its final results of a large interlaboratory comparison of sensor array systems, including cSAR3D. Ten participating laboratories performed over 7500 measurements in total using DASY systems and three sensor array systems. The results were used to develop a robust, improved protocol to use array systems in conjunction with full SAR systems to reduce test time.
IEC 62209-3
IEC 62209-3 will be the first SAR measurement standard to make exclusive use of vector measurement-based systems (e.g., sensor arrays). It is scheduled for submission as a Publicly Available Specification (PAS) in August and then as a Committee Draft for Voting (CDV) at the same time. The PAS has the advantage of faster publication. It will be withdrawn when the final international standard is available.
After years of discussions, the group finally agreed on the last two of the key sections of the IEC 62209-3 standard, namely, the sections on validation and the corresponding sources. In the London meeting, the IT’IS Foundation presented the validation of cSAR3D. Results for head and body phantoms are well within the acceptability criteria and are consistent with the outcome of the ISED Canada interlaboratory comparison study. Routine evaluation of the 1052 test configurations is possible within less than one week and if automated, the required time can be reduced to less than one day. SPEAG has recently made the entire set of validateon antennas commercially available.
5G Technical Report
The first Technical Report for electromagnetic exposure measurement up to 100 GHz has made significant progress by IEC TC106 Ad-Hoc Group 10. The report is on track for completion in October. Various techniques are described to assess the power density against the exposure limits. In London, the IT’IS Foundation presented its extensive evaluation of reference antennas that are designed for validating experimental test systems. It was noted that SPEAG is well positioned to provide equipment that meets the stringent requirements of the new standards, including new probes, specialized phantoms, and the cSAR3D array system.
SPEAG and the IT’IS Foundation will host the editorial meetings in July that will complete both IEC 62209-U and 62209-3 standards for publication.
