Methodological approaches in NextGEM - Next Generation Integrated Sensing and Analytical System for Monitoring and Assessing Radiofrequency EMF B53 Exposure and Health

The evolution of emerging technologies that use Radio Frequency Electromagnetic Field (RF-EMF) has increased the interest of the scientific community and society regarding the possible adverse effects on human health and the environment. The NextGEM Project vision is to assure healthy living and a safer working environment for EU citizens when employing existing and future EMF-based telecommunication technologies. The main goal of NextGEM is to generate relevant scientific knowledge and data on new scenarios of the next generation devices and equipment using RF-EMF and on the effects and interaction with biological materials relevant to human health. Together with the current epidemiological knowledge on cancer and reproductive outcomes, this knowledge is intended to be integrated into an evidence-based risk assessment for use by different stakeholders. The development of the NextGEM Innovation Knowledge Hub for EMF and Health (NIKH) can furthermore ensure the accessibility of the project results to the scientific community, the public, and the European regulatory bodies and improve awareness.

In this work, the methodological approaches encompassing real-time monitoring and historical and experimental data on new scenarios of exposure to RF-EMF in multiple frequency bands are presented. More specifically, the NextGEM framework can efficiently integrate all technical enablers of the project focusing on the following main methodologies:

Sensing and data sourcing: Data for new generation RF-EMF exposure assessment are collected from the literature and from novel measurement paradigms by simulation and experimentally measured in different real-life scenarios through the case studies conceived and developed during the project.

Analytics and experimentation: The combination of multiple approaches from real-life case scenarios, exposure assessment, with in vitro, ex vivo and in vivo experimental activities can elucidate possible biological and health-related effects of RF-EMF interactions and their underlying mechanisms.