FDTD modelling for microwave dosimetry and thermography

The work on the canonical problems to date has demonstrated how the FDTD code can be developed to investigate both the interaction of radiofrequency waves with biological-like structures and the characteristics of the sources themselves. Although the canonical problems are but the first step in the evaluation of dosimetry in the head resulting from mobile telecommunications, the SAR distributions produced by various modelling techniques show promising similarities and it is planned to validate them experimentally in the future using an inhomogeneous head shaped phantom. The ability to evaluate characteristics of EM sources will be of considerable value in the authors' other work involving the simulation of RF fields produced by the coils used in magnetic resonance Imaging. It has also been shown that the FDTD method can be used to develop an understanding of the relationship between the power received at a radiometer and the microwave (thermal) radiation sources within the body under investigation. The advantages of using the FDTD approach to study radiometry include the ability to model accurately the characteristics of the radiometer, particularly in the near field region, and to incorporate complex biological bodies into the model.