IXUS and fieldSENSE will be attending the CTIA WIRELESS 2012 Conference & Expo at Ernest N. Morial Convention Centre in New Orleans, Louisiana from 7th until the 10th of May 2012.  We will be joining more than 1000 companies that will be exhibiting their latest mobile industry technologies.  More than 27,000 square meters of exhibition space will be on show. Come and visit us in Hall F booth number 5062.

The conference will kick off a tour of the United States and Canada where IXUS will be visiting prominent EM compliance companies.   If you would like to be visited as well, let us know by sending an email to contact@emssixus.com

IXUS and fieldSENSE will be at the Mobile World Congress at Fira Montjuïc in Barcelona from 27 February until 1 March 2012 in Hall 2 stand B70. This will be IXUS’ second year at the Congress. The venue covers more than 165,000 square meters of mobile exhibits and conferences covering all facets of the mobile industry.  Over 1,400 exhibitors are expected to present their products and services.  Come and visit us and see what exciting new developments are in store for IXUS in the near future.  If you are already registered for the Mobile World Congress, add us as a favourite.  Hope to see you there.

It’s been extended to contain various internationally accepted EMF standards like ‘FCC (OET65)’ used in the USA, ‘BRV B11’ used in Germany, and the Canadian ‘Safety code 6’.  An uncertainty model in line with IEC 62232 was developed making it possible to adjust the confidence interval for the simulation results.  IXUS 3.0 has a new fresh look and feel that we hope breathes a bit of new life into the repetitive nature of the job.  Improvements in reporting allows both custom template reports to be added and existing report templates to be edited using Microsoft Word, making reports fully customisable.

We are looking forward to your feedback.

Full change-log follows…

IXUS Manager

• New fresh look and feel
• Updated user interface layout according to workflow
• All sections are sorted in collapsible panels of which states are remembered
• Improved selection and bulk actions using tickboxes and toolbar buttons
• Improved antenna dialogs allowing smarter searches
• New reports can be added and report templates are fully customisable using MS Word content controls
• Improved search functions (Searches on ‘street address’, carriers and ‘carrier numbers’ at all sites)
• User specifiable uncertainty model added in line with IEC 62232

IXUS Modeller

• New fresh look and feel
• Antennas can be duplicated and moved or rotated in 3D view
• Improved antenna dialogs allowing smarter antenna searches
• Support for inverted omnidirectional antennas
• User specifiable cable loss field added per frequency band
• Uncertainty model added to IXUS in accordance with IEC 62232 requirements
• Various international standards were added like FCC OET65, ARPANSA, Safety Code 6, and BGV B11
• Construction lines added at 90° angles for poly-primitives
• Text labels added
• Labels can now be moved by dragging them around
• Antenna list in the tree is sorted according to owners
• Object geometry simplified for improved rendering speed
• Railings improved to a multi-point object like the fence
• Many bug fixes and improvements

Update: Although most customers have received the update, the latest IXUS Solo Modeller 3.0.16 is now available to download and the new IXUS Manager 3.0.23 can be evaluated online.  Go to the download page to access these updates.  The latest version of the Modeller adds vertical blueprints along with improved resolution management of environmental slices, faster start-up times and improved general stability.

The actual values used in IXUS software when selecting the FCC standard have been published by the FCC and can be found in either of two informational bulletins on the FCC Web site at OET Bulletin 56 or OET Bulletin 65.

These FCC guidelines were set up in consultation with, and from research supported by various federal health and safety agencies such as the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).  Countries in Europe, Africa and Asia have adopted exposure guidelines developed by the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP).  The ICNIRP safety limits are generally similar to those of the NCRP and IEEE, with a few exceptions.

The NCRP, IEEE and ICNIRP exposure guidelines identify similar threshold levels at which harmful biological effects may occur.  The level of exposure recommended by ICNIRP is somewhat different in the lower and upper frequency ranges and for localised exposure.  In addition, the NCRP, IEEE and ICNIRP guidelines for maximum permissible exposure are different for different transmitting frequencies.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) EMF Project is working towards providing a framework for harmonisation of these different international of RF safety standards.  IXUS Software now allows the user to select the required exposure levels from a selection of different internationally accepted standards.

Source: FCC

IXUS now has a built-in, user customisable uncertainty model.  The newly published IEC 62232 Standard requires an uncertainty model for the ray tracing assessment method used in IXUS Modeller software.

Users can choose to include or exclude feed system loss and scattering and reflection uncertainties in the model and have the option to run simulations at the following confidence intervals:

• Upper two-sided 95%
• Upper two-sided 80%
• Best estimate
• Lower two-sided 80%
• Lower two-sided 95%

An upper 2-sided 95% confidence interval means that there is a 97.5% certainty that the simulated fields are conservative over the actual fields.  This will typically be used by operators who want to ensure that the calculations they do with IXUS and the resulting control boundaries around antennas are conservative.  A lower 2-sided 95% confidence interval means that there is a 97.5% certainty that the simulated fields are lower than the actual fields.  This might be used by regulators who investigate RF compliance at sites and who want to be confident about non-compliance findings.  ‘Best estimate’ refers to the statistically most likely value.  This is where the simulated value is most likely to equal the actual field value.

In the past performing a compliance assessment that included uncertainty estimations was a laborious process.  This feature simplifies the process and reduces the effort required.  See the attached example for more information on base station compliance assessments and uncertainty.

Full uncertainty analyses were performed for the ray tracing assessment method, as required by the IEC 62232 standard.  A 95% Confidence Interval (CI) is used in the results and related control boundaries presented, ensuring conservative results for 97.5% of all cases.

IEC 62232 – EMSS IXUS – Ray Tracing Case Study.pdf

We would like to thank all those who attended the meeting, for many fruitful discussions on IXUS Software and EMF safety in general. We look forward to meeting again, if not sooner then at the next BEMS meeting.
View the abstract or have a look at our presentation if you want to know more.

This video shows the basic functionality of the IXUS Measurement Module. Base stations are assigned to specific surveyors and measured using the Narda SRM 3006.  The Narda SRM measures GPS coordinates and records a voice message with each measurement. Afterwards it is connected to a PC and measurements are associated and uploaded to the IXUS Manager server.  On the IXUS Manager you can download a .GPX file that opens in Google Earth.  Create aerial pictures and upload them in the Manager along with photos of the base station.  Automatically generate a report using all the base station information, measurements, aerial pictures and photos.

An example of such a report can be viewed here.

• Multi-core calculation implemented improving calculator speed on dual and quad core machines. See the comparison in the previous post.
• Exclusion zone imprints improved and extended to appear on ground as well as on geometry as shown in this video.
• Signs can be added and used in the Modeller physically and as labels
• Duplicate and move functionality now available in both the 3D view and the object tree
• Caution lines functionality improved
• Far-field patterns are now included for custom antennas resulting in more accurate calculations outside bounding block. (Antenna models have to be updated to see the effect)
• Antenna label moves towards front of antenna when viewing from the top
• An environmental slice label was added to differentiate between environmental slices
• Default rotation axis orientation changed according to local coordinates of target objects
• Memory hedge provided for safe out of memory situations
• New simplified and smaller installation package
• Many bug fixes and stability improvements

The exclusion zone calculator implemented in the IXUS Modeller has recently been optimised and updated to support multi-core calculation methods and the results speak for themselves.  The graphs below depict the differences in the calculation times on a four core desktop machine before and after the implementation of the optimisations.  On large sites the calculator is almost four times faster.  You might not have enough time to get a coffee…

]]> http://www.emssixus.com/wordpress/?feed=rss2&p=111 0 http://www.emssixus.com/wordpress/?p=163 http://www.emssixus.com/wordpress/?p=163#comments Tue, 22 Mar 2011 12:10:39 +0000 bbosch http://www.emssixus.com/wordpress/?p=163 Continue reading →]]> IXUS EMF Compliance management and simulation software and the ensuing compliance process followed is in all major aspects in line with the requirements set out in European Union Directive 2004/40/EC for mobile and other base stations. The Directive refers to the requirements for limiting exposure of the general public and measures to improve the safety and health of employees.  EU member states are to implement the laws, regulations and administrative provisions necessary to comply with this directive no later than 30 April 2012.  The 2004/40/EC is still in draft format, but would be a good starting point for a proactive compliance approach.

IXUS compliance database and modelling software offers an integrated platform for the storing and management of all compliance related documentation, photos, measurements and 3D simulations required and simplifies the issuing of compliance reports and certificates through automatic report generation.  Compliance reports and information are accessible from anywhere and can easily be updated as the base station evolves.  The compliance process and the IXUS software features are all designed to be used in an RF safety program which usually consists of the following steps:

• Assessment of base stations
• Implementation of control measures
• Documentation of all assessments and control measures for record keeping and audits
• Maintenance and monitoring of compliance at sites after configuration changes or upgrades

“In carrying out the obligations laid down, the employer shall assess and, if necessary, measure and/or calculate the levels of electromagnetic fields to which workers are exposed.” “Assessment, measurement and calculation may, until harmonised European standards from CENELEC cover all relevant assessment, measurement and calculation situations, be carried out in accordance with the scientifically-based standards and guidelines referred to in Article 3 and, when relevant, by taking into account the emission levels provided by the manufacturers of the equipment when it is covered by the relevant Community Directives.”

Article 4 – 1, DIRECTIVE 2004/40/EC

Three assessment methods are used in practice by operators and are supported by international standards.

• Generic assessments involve using site information like plans and photos, along with basic calculations to create generic compliance rules that can be applied to establish compliance.  It is typically used at masts and basic wall mounted base stations.
• For more complex rooftop- and shared base stations Numerical modelling software like IXUS Modeller can be used.
• Measurements are used for sites shared with high power partners and complex rooftops sites where the conservative generic assessments or the numerical modelling indicated non-compliance.  It is expected that less conservative measurements would result in compliance.

The exposure limit values and action values referred to in Article 3 of the directive are obtained from the exposure limit values used by the International Commission on Non-ionising Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) in its guidelines on limiting exposure to non-ionising radiation (ICNIRP 7/99).  The algorithms implemented and used for the computational assessment in IXUS Modeller are an implementation of the ray tracing synthetic model as detailed in ITU-T K.61, CENELEC 50383, and draft IEC62232.

Numerical modelling assessments in IXUS Modeller include the combined exposure from multi-band and multi-operator transmissions as specified in the EU directive.  IXUS Modeller calculates the occupational and public exclusion zones established by ICNIRP.  However, IXUS can also be customised to use different international compliance standards including those of the IEEE, ARPANSA and other EU standards.  IXUS Modeller can also be used as a compliance planning tool during the design stages of a base station to visualise the exposure limits in 3D, optimising the selection and placement of equipment.

“The data obtained from the assessment, measurement and/or calculation of the level of exposure shall be preserved in a suitable form so as to permit consultation at a later stage.”  “The risk assessment shall be updated on a regular basis, particularly if there have been significant changes which could render it out of date, or when the results of health surveillance show it to be necessary.”

Article 4 – 4, DIRECTIVE 2004/40/EC

Record keeping in terms of compliance is a requirement of most international guidelines and standards.  Basic assessment documentation and site pictures are required for all sites. More advanced assessment reports including the calculations and/or measurements with detailed site information are a requirement for more complex sites such as rooftops and shared sites.

IXUS is perfectly aligned in order to fulfil the requirements set out in the EU directive.  Generic assessments, calculations and/or measurements of the electromagnetic fields can easily be performed at all sites in a network.  3D Modelling and calculation of exposure limits are based on scientifically established and accepted standards.  An assessment of the EMF risk areas can be kept on the database and updated as it evolves and the identified control measures can be documented.  Up to date information on access control, signage and control measures can easily be accessed by employees encouraging work methods that reduce the duration and intensity of RF exposure.

Additionally EMSS also designed and manufactures the fieldSENSE personal RF monitor which will further ensure that RF workers and members of the public working in the vicinity of transmitting base stations antennas will not be overexposed.