Whole-Body Averaged Absorbed Power in Insects Exposed to Far-Field Radio Frequency Electromagnetic Fields

Abstract

Insects are exposed to environmental radio frequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMFs), which are partially absorbed by their body. This absorption is currently unknown for most insect types. Therefore, numerical simulations were performed to study the far-field absorption of RF-EMFs by different insect types at the frequencies between 2 and 120 GHz, which are (expected to be) used in (future) wireless communication. The simulations were done using anatomically accurate as well as spheroid models of the insects. The maximum absorbed power, which ranged from 7.55 to 389 nW for an incident electric field strength of 1 V/m for the studied insect types, was obtained at wavelengths comparable to the insects' size. We created a log-linear model that can estimate absorbed power in insects with an average relative error of <43% between 6 and 120 GHz using only the insects' volume and the frequency as an input using the simulation results. In addition, our simulations showed a very high correlation (r > 0.95) between the absorbed power predicted with anatomically accurate insect models and those predicted with spheroid models at the frequencies between 6 and 24 GHz. This suggests that such models could be used to evaluate the RF-EMF exposure of insects in future studies.