Measurement of permittivity of human abdomen by penetrate wave guide method

Abstract

By abdominal circumferences measurements, possibility of metabolic syndrome can be estimated. However to accurately measure abdominal fat, other expensive methods are necessary (e.g. CT scan or MRI). To measure one's visceral fat accurately and overcome this issue, a method to measure one's abdomen accurately and non-invasively, electrical impedance tomography (EIT) for measuring the abdominal area has been proposed. However EIT uses electrodes which contact with human skin, which to be treated carefully. In this report, non-contact method to measure permittivity of abdomen using microwave is proposed. The penetrate wave guide method is applied on large size rectangular wave guide to measure permittivity of human abdomen. Numerical simulations of this method is performed on several kind of layered cylinders which emulate human abdomen. As a result, different scattering coefficients are obtained for each condition. For the future, from measured permittivity, amount of abdominal fat might be estimated.