The hazards of EMF exposure present a unique challenge for Health and Safety, simply by virtue of being invisible, heavily regulated, and stigmatized by the general public. It is therefore expected that precautions and even some level of risk management is taken whenever there is potential exposure. Failure in accountability may result in legal action.

To address this problem it needs to first be visualized. EMF cannot be seen with the human eye so a computer simulation of a scenario is required and an array of calculations. This will indicate the safety regions which can then be used to demarcate areas of acceptable and high EMF exposure. The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) has provided recommendations for the best formulae for the calculations and simulations required.

The ITU-I K.70 is a document that describes several formulae that simplifies some of the calculations needed. The calculations are based on a generic reflectance power density factor which can provide a suitable approximation which can be used for most scenarios. It also makes distinction between occupational and general public exposure limits in its calculations.

LS of South Africa Radio Communication Services has developed a 3D based EMF simulator based on the recommendations provided in ITU-I K.70. All that is required is an antenna pattern file and some basic configuration parameters to create a 3D model of the EMF safety regions. The larger yellow region is the General Public limit and the red region is the Occupational limit. Multiple antenna pattern files can be loaded simultaneously. Each one can be configured on a different azimuth, elevation, tilt, or height.

The resulting model can even be downloaded and viewed in Google Earth (KMZ file) at a coordinate of your choosing. In conjunction with our 3D digital twin product, we can digitally insert the 3D EMF safety regions onto the antennas of a 3D scan of a mast. This 3D scene can be inspected in your browser. A Virtual Reality environment is currently in development which will give the user the ability to walk around a 3D antenna and personally visualize the once invisible EMF safety regions.