Assessment of induced radio-frequency electromagnetic fields in various anatomical human body models

• Published in: Physics in medicine & biology 2009-02, Vol.54 (4), p.875-890
• Main Authors: Kühn, Sven, Jennings, Wayne, Christ, Andreas, Kuster, Niels
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; Aging - physiology; Body Burden; Child; Computer Simulation; Electromagnetic Fields; Female; Humans; Male; Models, Anatomic; Models, Biological; Radiation Dosage; Radio Waves; Scattering, Radiation; Whole-Body Counting - methods; Young Adult
• ISSN: 0031-9155; 1361-6560
• DOI: 10.1088/0031-9155/54/4/004

The reference levels for testing compliance of human exposure with radio-frequency (RF) safety limits have been derived from very simplified models of the human. In order to validate these findings for anatomical models, we investigated the absorption characteristics for various anatomies ranging from 6 year old child to large adult male by numerical modeling. We address the exposure to plane-waves incident from all major six sides of the humans with two orthogonal polarizations each. Worst-case scattered field exposure scenarios have been constructed in order to test the implemented procedures of current in situ compliance measurement standards (spatial averaging versus peak search). Our findings suggest that the reference levels of current electromagnetic (EM) safety guidelines for demonstrating compliance as well as some of the current measurement standards are not consistent with the basic restrictions and need to be revised.