A precise electromagnetic field model useful for development of microwave imaging systems

Purpose - The paper describes a fast forward electromagnetic model built with help of commercial software. The purpose of this paper is to create an efficient and robust electromagnetic field model that could be easily plugged into a working microwave imaging system. The secondary purpose is to evaluate advantages and disadvantages of such a commercial packages for creating such a model.Design/methodology/approach - In this paper the authors decided to build the model using COMSOL Multiphysics software suite, ultimately comparing its result to measurements of a real device. The numerical model was created in an iterative fashion in order to determine how much details are needed to make it reliable, while keeping it efficient.Findings - The authors found that the commercial software seems like a viable platform for developing electromagnetic solvers. The resulting computer model is easy to prepare, run and integrate with external tools.Research limitations/implications - Using the experience in building numerical models of various systems the authors came to the conclusion that developing some in-house code is a very non-efficient technique as it slows down the progress of the research team once the team changes. Transfer of knowledge associated with the numerical tools is much easier when the tools are constructed using a common platform, i.e. commercial packages. It does not really matter if the software is free or proprietary as long as the platform provides efficient tools assisting in model preparation and data visualization.Practical implications - One of the main advantages of using such a full field electromagnetic model is the ability to investigate an impact of different properties of the system ( length of antennas, liquid parameters) on its performance. Thanks to the use of commercial software it is much easier to pass the project to new people too.Originality/value - The presented numerical model utilizes a frugal meshing scheme which allows faster execution while keeping required accuracy of solutions. Using this model the authors were able to diagnose important geometrical details that could affect the performance of the system.