Inverse modeling for heat conduction problem in human abdominal phantom

Noninvasive methods for deep body temperature measurement are based on the principle of heat equilibrium between the thermal sensor and the target location theoretically. However, the measurement position is not able to be definitely determined. In this study, a 2-dimensional mathematical model was built based upon some assumptions for the physiological condition of the human abdomen phantom. We evaluated the feasibility in estimating the internal organs temperature distribution from the readings of the temperature sensors arranged on the skin surface. It is a typical inverse heat conduction problem (IHCP), and is usually mathematically ill-posed. In this study, by integrating some physical and physiological a-priori information, we invoked the quasi-linear (QL) method to reconstruct the internal temperature distribution. The solutions of this method were improved by increasing the accuracy of the sensors and adjusting their arrangement on the outer surface, and eventually reached the state of converging at the best state accurately. This study suggests that QL method is able to reconstruct the internal temperature distribution in this phantom and might be worthy of a further study in an anatomical based model.