A Novel Idea of Evaluating Non-ionizing 2.45 GHz Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) RF Radiation on Human Cognitive Performance Using Wearable Textile Monopole Antennas

摘要

This paper presents a novel idea of evaluating the non-ionizing 2.45 GHz Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) radio frequency electromagnetic fields exposure effect on human cognitive performance. The study aims at determining whether exposure of non-ionizing 2.45 GHz WBAN radio electromagnetic fields (EMF) may affect the cognitive performance of human being. Twenty healthy and right-handed volunteers (10 males and 10 females) are involved in the test and exposed to 2.45 GHz WBAN, emitted by a pair of planar textile monopole antennas in 1-hr per-session, with two separate sessions; EMF exposure and sham exposure (no exposure). Paired Associates Learning (PAL) and Spatial Span Length (SSP) tasks using CANTAB eclipse version 4.0 cognitive software, are performed by each subject to assess the visual memory and working memory capacity during the exposure of on-body textile monopole (TM) antennas positioned on right-upper-arm-to-left-chest link. A total of two outcome measures are presented in measuring PAL which are PAL Total errors (adjusted) and PAL Mean errors to adjusted, measuring mean number of errors made before the stage is successfully completed. The result showed that both PAL outcome measures and SSP give no significant difference between exposure conditions (EMF and sham exposures), p's> 0.05. Thus, PAL and SSP performance (cognitive) is not affected by non-ionizing 2.45 GHz WBAN EMF exposure.