Statistical multipath exposure of a human in a realistic electromagnetic environment

A new and fast numerical method is presented to assess the whole-body averaged specific absorption rate (SAR) in a human body model in a realistic electromagnetic environment. The method requires a minimum set of initial numerical simulations with a 3D electromagnetic solver. From the initial simulation results, the absorption can be quickly (within 1 s) determined in a realistic electromagnetic environment. The realistic electromagnetic environment has been modeled as a finite sum of incident plane waves. The presented fast method serves as a substitute for brute-force 3D electromagnetic simulations. Therefore, the method must only be validated with brute-force 3D electromagnetic simulations in terms of whole-body averaged SAR, and excellent agreement has been observed. The method has been applied to assess the cumulative distribution function of the whole-body averaged SAR in a spheroid human body model for four types of realistic electromagnetic environments. We observed that for all the four environments the whole-body averaged SAR complies with the International Commission on Non Ionizing Radiation Protection basic restriction for general public. Furthermore, the whole-body averaged SAR for a realistic exposure exceeds the worst-case single plane wave exposure in approximately 10% of the exposure samples.