A Broadband Monitoring System for Electromagnetic-Radiation Assessment

A broadband monitoring system for measuring the total electric field radiated from broadcasting (radio, TV) and communications (mobile telephony, TETRA, WLAN) systems is presented. The system has been implemented for recording the field on a 24-hour basis. It has an omnidirectional sensor antenna and the appropriate electronic circuits. The heart of the system is a low-power, eight-bit RISC Microchip microcontroller, running at 10 MHz. Various digital and analog peripherals are connected to the microcontroller. The system can send the data to a personal computer through a USB interface, and can communicate through a GSM modem. Low cost and high reliability render the system inexpensive for the deployment of electromagnetic radiation-monitoring networks, and make it trustworthy for the public. Several tests of the sensor's pattern, the linearity of the response, and the frequency response have shown that the system can be successfully compared with commercially available systems.