Summary of Session D: Experimental Dosimetry

Pokovic, et al. represents an articulate state-of-the-art review of the methods and considerations that must be accounted for during near-field evaluations of RF transmitters, with an emphasis on cellular telephone handsets. The paper provides a review of safety standards and compliance requirements, as well as a discussion on the sources of uncertainty in compliance testing. A section on the experimental methods for performing near-field dosimetry in phantoms and free-space provides a balanced review of the pros and cons of each method. This is followed with a review of numerical methods for modeling near-field conditions including: Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FD-TD); the Finite-Element (FE) method; as well as several methods for numerical evaluation of complex antenna structures. The fmal section reviews special considerations for precise assessment of SAR for compliance testing, e.g., anatomical variability of head shape, effect of hand position, etc..