TITLE:
Design and Evaluation of a Sensitive, Low Cost and Portable Millimeter Wave Survey Meter
AUTHORS:
Howard Bassen, Negin Shahshahan, Amir Razjouyan, Gonzalo Mendoza, Mohammed Eslami, Trent Robertson
KEYWORDS:
Index Terms Millimeter Wave, Measurement, Instrument, Meter, Exposure
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Antennas and Propagation,
Vol.6 No.3,
September
18,
2018
ABSTRACT: We developed a small, hand-held, portable, low cost, millimeter wave (mmW)
meter to detect and display the levels of emissions from L3 ProVision security
scanners used in hundreds of airports for detection of contraband and weapons.
The meter is intended to measure radiation emissions from this particular
scanner and enable the user to enable periodic quality assurance measurements
and to see if undesirably high levels were to occur. The
non-engineering staff of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA)
can use this meter to demonstrate safety of these scanners to passengers using
this simple handheld instrument certified by the US Food Drug administration.
This meter can assess human exposure levels during periodic quality
assurance inspections, in a region where a person is being scanned, and
demonstrate the lack of possible interference with body worn medical devices.
It has receiving, signal processing, output display, and user control
subsystems, and displays graphical and numerical information. The meter
detects low level, pulses of mmW electromagnetic radiation (20 - 30 GHz
with levels of 0.02 V/m to 0.15 V/m). It displays a single burst of five or more
10 μsec pulses. It detects levels as low as several thousand times below the
maximum permissible levels prescribed by international human exposure
safety standards. This compact system replaces the bulky and costly collection
of large and costly instruments needed to perform the same measurements.