Numerical estimation of EMI impact on implantable cardiac pacemakers in elevator using EMF distributions inside human body

© 2010 IEEE. Reprinted, with permission, from Hikage, T., Nojima, T., Simba, A.Y., Watanabe, S., Numerical estimation of EMI impact on implantable cardiac pacemakers in elevator using EMF distributions inside human body, 2010 IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society International Symposium (APSURSI), Jul. 2010. This material is posted here with permission of the IEEE. Such permission of the IEEE does not in any way imply IEEE endorsement of any of Hokkaido University products or services. Internal or personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution must be obtained from the IEEE by writing to [email protected]. By choosing to view this document, you agree to all provisions of the copyright laws protecting it

Specific Absorption Rates of Anatomically Realistic Human Models Exposed to RF Electromagnetic Fields From Mobile Phones Used in Elevators

This paper presents a detailed numerical investigation to determine whether or not an increased specific absorption rate (SAR) in an adult using a mobile phone inside an elevator due to the multireflections of electromagnetic fields from the walls exceed the RF-exposure guidelines. A fully realistic heterogeneous human body model and an actual elevator size were employed. The nonuniform mesh finite-difference time-domain technique and a supercomputer were employed to obtain the SAR and other important parameters. The mobile phone was modeled as a λ/2 dipole antenna placed at a distance of 16 mm from the head. For computations, operating frequencies of 900, 1500, and 2000 MHz with transmitting power of 250 mW were used. Computed results show that the peak spatial-average 10-g SAR depends on the position of the passenger and the antenna against the elevator walls. We observed a substantial increase in the whole-body average SAR and peak 10-g SAR values of the passenger in the elevator over their respective free-space values. However, the maximum values obtained do meet the basic restrictions described in the international RF safety guidelines. For example, the maximum values of the whole-body average and peak spatial-average SAR were 4.4% and 78% of the international RF safety guideline, respectively

Estimation of EMI Impact by Cellular Radio on Implantable Cardiac Pacemakers in Elevator Using EMF Distributions Inside Human Body

The purpose of this study is to estimate the possible effect of cellular radio on implantable cardiac pacemakers in elevators. We previously investigated pacemaker EMI in elevator by examining the E-field distribution of horizontal plane at the height of expected for implanted pacemakers inside elevators. In this paper, we introduce our method for estimating EMI impact to implantable cardiac pacemakers using EMF distributions inside the region of the human body in which pacemakers are implanted. Simulations of a human phantom in an elevator are performed and histograms are derived from the resulting EMF distributions. The computed results of field strengths are compared with a certain reference level determined from experimentally obtained maximum interference distance of implantable cardiac pacemakers. This enables us to carry out a quantitative evaluation of the EMI impact to pacemakers by cellular radio transmission. This paper uses a numerical phantom model developed based on an European adult male. The simulations evaluate EMI on implantable cardiac pacemakers in three frequency bands. As a result, calculated E-field strengths are sufficiently low to cause the pacemaker to malfunction in the region examined