Determination of pulmonary edema using microwave sensor array: Simulation studies with anatomically realistic human CAD-models

The authors have previously proposed and experimentally verified a microwave medical sensor for monitoring vital signs including the lung water content. It is proposed that, with a careful and medically based designed array of such sensors, both surface and in-depth vital signs can be extracted accurately. For such array design, realistic human models can be used in full-wave simulators with the help of medical personnel. In this paper, the feasibility of detecting the edema in the lungs using the proposed microwave measurement method is studied using realistic human models in full-wave electromagnetic simulators (HFSS). Simulation results show that, the reflection and transmission coefficient phase exhibits a change with the increasing amount of edema as a proof of concept. The sensitivity and measurement accuracy can be increased by including the transmission coefficient measurements and further by using medically based designed sensor array.