Electric Field Measurement for Biomedical Application -- Characteristics of Raw Measurement Data

The authors are studying a technique to measure moisture distribution inside the human body by applying electric field at radio frequency (RF). Weak RF power is fed to an antenna that is as small as a few centimeters square, and the same type of antenna measures electric field intensity where two antennas are located 15 to 50 cm apart from each other. Although the method does not provide fine resolution because of the principle, it has such advantages as simple, safe and cost-effective so that it can be used for health care and screening of medical care. This paper reports preliminary experiment where portions of the human body were measured by the experimental system. Raw measurement data were processed by a digital filter and their quality and other characteristics were evaluated.