Abstract
—Uplink electromagnetic field (EMF) exposure in direct-to-satellite communication raises concerns about potential health effects due to the high transmit power needed to compensate for path loss over large distances. In this regard, we propose an EMF-aware architecture where multiple Low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellites cooperatively serve each user to reduce uplink EMF exposure while meeting users' data rate requirements. Considering limited resources at the satellites, a proper user-satellite association policy is designed through a tailored many-to-many stable marriage (i.e., Gale-Shapley) algorithm. Then, the optimal power control mechanism at the user terminal (UT) is designed. The proposed algorithm achieves an EMF exposure reduction of one order of magnitude compared to Space single-input single-output (SISO) scheme while maintaining a data rate of 20 [Mbps].