Radiation hazards to personnel from non-ionizing fields of broadband HF systems onboard a vessel: Measurement and simulation

Modern warships have to accommodate onboard a great number and variety of electronic systems in order to be able to accomplish their missions. People standing on the metal deck of a warship near antennas are constantly exposed to intense electromagnetic fields, so the hazards of non-ionizing electromagnetic radiation to personnel (HERP) must be studied. HERP are mainly caused by transmitter antennas, which are confined to a limited space onboard a vessel. Particularly, high frequency (HF) band antennas are indispensable in shipboard communication systems and usually represent one of the main sources of HERP. This paper describes a measurement procedure for the non-ionizing electromagnetic field due to the HF broadband systems on a modern warship. This procedure is validated and complemented with the simulations performed with an accurate full-wave electromagnetic solver (M3/HEMCUVE).