| Description |
Electromagnetic interference (EMI) in life-supporting devices has always raised concerns about the possible risk of harming patients who depend on these devices to live. Risk analysis usually involves several dependent events, for example, the risk of death caused by EMI is equal to the probability that the electric field strength in the region where the life-supporting device is place is higher than the immunity of the device, times the probability that the device will malfunction given that its immunity has been exceeded, times the probability that the malfunction will cause the patient to die. This project aims to build a measurement system (robot) which is capable of measuring the volume distribution of the electric field strength in an indoor environment. Therefore, it focuses on the development of a powerful tool to tackle the first event of the chain of events described above, or rather, on the characterization of the indoor environment, such as a hospital, in which the electromagnetic radiation created by wireless systems propagates.
The challenge here is to develop a measurement system precise enough to account for fast fading so that the measurements support the results of existing simulations and probabilistic models. Basically, fast fading phenomenon is the fast variation of the field caused by interference due to many reflections on the walls of an indoor environment. Therefore, the measurement system must be able to follow precisely a line (forward movement) in steps as small as 1 cm through a path which can be as large as 50 m. Moreover, at every stop along the line, it must be able to scan an area formed by a lateral and vertical axis by means of either linear actuators with an antenna element or horizontal linear actuator with an array of antennas in the vertical direction. Thus, as the robot move forward it will measure a volume distribution of the electric field strength. The data collected must be recorded automatically into a file. Finally, the system must be battery operated.
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