Gel-Like Human Mimicking Phantoms: Realization Procedure, Dielectric Characterization and Experimental Validations on Microwave Wearable Body Sensors

• Published in: Biosensors (Basel) Vol. 11; no. 4; p. 111
• Main Authors: Costanzo, Sandra, Cioffi, Vincenzo, Qureshi, Adil Masoud, Borgia, Antonio
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 08-04-2021; MDPI
• Subjects: Antennas; biological phantoms; Biomimetics; Biosensing Techniques; biosensors; Calibration; Communication; Cost control; Design; Designers; Dielectric constant; Dielectric properties; Electric Conductivity; Expected values; Frequency ranges; Human body; Humans; Laboratories; Microwaves; Mimicry; Multilayers; Muscles; Phantoms, Imaging; Product development; Reference materials; security; Sensors; Simulation; Skin; Telemedicine; Water; wearable devices; Wearable Electronic Devices; Wearable technology; wearable devices; biological phantoms; security; biosensors
• ISSN: 2079-6374; 2079-6374
• DOI: 10.3390/bios11040111

A simple and low-cost procedure for gel-like time-durable biological phantoms is presented in this work. Easily accessible materials are adopted, which are able to provide a flexible and controllable method to rapidly realize different kind of tissues. The proposed technique is applied to fabricate various tissue-mimicking phantoms, namely skin, muscle, blood and fat. Their effectiveness is first tested by performing dielectric characterization on a wide frequency range, from 500 MHz up to 5 GHz, and validating the measured dielectric parameters (dielectric constant and conductivity) by comparison with reference models in the literature. Then, a multi-layer phantom simulating the human arm is realized, and a wearable body sensor is adopted to prove the perfect agreement of the biometric response achieved in the presence of the fabricated phantom and that provided by a real human arm.