This Standard specifies requirements for, and provides guidance on, assessing compliance with the exposure limits of radio frequency (RF) safety standards such as ARPANSA Standard RPS3 or New Zealand Standard NZS 2772.1. This includes methodologies for making an assessment (by measurement or computation) of human exposure to ambient RF fields and induced body currents in the frequency range of 3 kHz to 300 GHz.

This Standard also sets out processes for calculating the basic restrictions quantities (such as specific absorption rate and induced current density) in the relevant standards, but does not address their measurement.

This Standard may also be used as a guide for making low-level environmental exposure assessments in areas around RF sources, or for other purposes.

This Standard provides appropriate methodologies, including measurement techniques and instrumentation selection, computational techniques and the determination of assessment uncertainty and its use in assessing compliance with applicable exposure limits.

The assessment methodologies provided in this Standard may be applied for all types of RF exposure situations including exposure to—

(a) leakage fields;

(b) radiated fields; and

(c) reactive fields.

NOTE: Leakage fields generally imply unintentional leakage of energy, whereas radiated fields are considered primarily to be intentionally radiated RF fields. Reactive fields are present in the immediate vicinity of all sources or re-radiating objects.

This Standard is applicable to the compliance assessment of RF exposures from most kinds of RF sources including—

(i) broadcast installations;

(ii) cellular base stations;

(iii) radio-communications facilities;

(iv) radar installations;

(v) medical applications such as diathermy machines;

(vi) industrial applications, including RF welders, heaters and induction heaters; and

(vii) scientific applications.

NOTES:

1 Assessment methodologies may vary for different frequency ranges.

2 While this Standard applies to frequencies from 3 kHz to 300 GHz, it should be noted that most measurements are likely to be made at frequencies between 100 kHz and 60 GHz.