The penetration characteristic of radio wave frequencies from oral cavities.

Abstract

Recently many radio telemetry systems have been inserted into oral cavities and have been used to send data to receivers. Although various frequencies were used in those systems, there has been no report about the most effective penetrative frequency in the human body. In this study, we observed the penetration of radio waves from oral cavities and compared the efficiency of different frequencies. We selected 11 edentulous persons as subjects and the frequencies ranged from 1 to 150 MHz. Although the attenuation gradually increased with the increase of frequency in most cases, we observed that there were effective resonance-like frequencies in three subjects and the frequency differed from person to person. This phenomenon was only observed when receiving antennas were set beside the mouth and not observed when the antennas were set about 1 m away from subjects. Therefore, it is considered that this phenomenon was produced by the relationship between the transmitting antenna and the receiving antenna. This result suggested that there were effective resonance-like frequencies in the case of radiation from edentulous oral cavities.