Why North America is going to integrate the IEC 62209-3, the only SAR measurement standard able to measure efficiently, accurately and quickly the radiations of 5G devices with 5G with complex emissions.

IEC 62209-3 regulatory adoption in North America

On January 8th, 2020, the Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) issued a notice on the IEC 62209-3:2019 standard, which specifies the requirements for RF selective vector measurement-based systems (RFS VMBS) to measure the Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) of wireless devices.

Different from historical SAR measurement systems and protocols, the IEC 62209-3 standard supports a more robust, accurate and easier-to-use methodology that is built on advanced field reconstruction methods and validated through extensive verification tests. It is precisely because of the stringent requirements for the high performance of the measurement system that regulators in various countries are willing to choose partially or fully accept the content of this new standard.

RFS VMBS are especially crucial, and even inevitable for faster and more complex signals (such as LTE-Advanced and 5G) because of multiple combinations of emissions and drastically wider bandwidths of signals. Moreover, RFS VMBS are the only one approach for measuring devices in testing conditions exactly similar than real life intended used conditions. Parallel to that, it is possible to use vector measurement-based based systems within the framework of the application of Fast SAR method as described for example in the IEC/IEEE 62209-1528 in combination with historical single probe systems to significantly reduce SAR measurement times.

It is important to remind that when a new international standard is adopted by scientific experts from different national committees in compliance with the IEC code of conduct, worldwide regulators have the legitimacy to choose a gradual path of migration to the adoption of a new state-of-the-art standard that will replace the old versions associated with historical technologies.

According to reliable information, the idea of regulators in Canada is to effectively extract the high-quality content of IEC 62209-3 to better complete its own SAR measurement standards, thanks to the accuracy and speed in system performance. Regarding the ongoing actions of North American regulators and because of their understanding of the additional benefits of RF selective Vector measurement-based systems and IEC 62209-3 standard, acceleration of the adoption will be expected.