On the use of numerical phantoms in the study of the human-antenna interaction problem

The use of numerical phantoms is a common way to attack complex dosimetric problems, such as the near-field human-antenna interaction. The human exposure to the near-field of radiobase antennas is numerically studied using a parallel finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method, comparing results attained with eight different human numerical phantoms. The effects of the phantom shape and structure on specific absorption rate (SAR) calculation are studied, as well as the error induced by the use of homogeneous phantoms, instead of accurate heterogeneous ones. Results demonstrate that substantial differences can be observed in peak-SAR calculations.