Dosimetry of electromagnetic field exposure of an active armlet and its electromagnetic interference to the cardiac pacemakers using adult, child and infant models

ABSTRACT

Wearable devices have been popularly used with people from different age groups. As a consequence, the concerns of their electromagnetic field (EMF) exposure to the human body and their electromagnetic interference (EMI) to the implanted medical devices have attracted many studies. The aim of this study was to evaluate the human exposure to the EMF of an active radiofrequency identification (RFID) armlet as well as its EMI to the cardiac pacemaker (CP). Different human models from various age groups were applied to assess the result variability. The scalar potential finite element method was utilized in the simulation. Local EMF exposure and the exposure to the central nerve system tissues were evaluated using different metrics. EMI to the CP was assessed in terms of the conducted voltage to the CP. The results from all the models revealed that the studied RFID armlet would not produce the EMF exposure exceeding the safety limits. The calculated interference voltage was highly dependent on the distance between the RFID armlet and the CP (i.e. the physical dimension of the individual model). The results proposed to evaluate the appropriateness of the current EMI measurement protocol for this kind of devices used by the infants.

KEYWORDS:

• Electromagnetic field exposure
• electromagnetic interference
• infant model
• variability
• wearable devices

Declaration of interest

The work is supported by the grants from National Key Basic Research Project (2011CB503705), National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 61371187 and 61001159) and French ANSES project ACTE (Grant No.2012/2/044).