Distances between Rats in Reverberation Chambers Used for Large-Scale Experiments

Abstract

We investigate the whole-body average specific absorption rate (WBA-SAR) of rats under various plane wave exposure characteristics, including different polarizations, incidence angles, distances between rats, and total number of rats. Unlike many other studies, we start our SAR analysis from one rat and expand it to 27 rats facing random directions in a three-dimensional area. In a one-rat analysis, we examine how the incidence direction and polarization affect the SAR of a single rat. Moreover, we look into how various incidence polarizations behave differently after they are transmited through a rat, the information of which is then used to analyze the effect of spacing among 27 randomly arranged rats. Next, we analyze the effect on spacing of the 27 rats deployed under a 52-plane-wave exposure, which is introduced to mimic a realistic reverberation chamber (RC) environment. We show the deviation in WBA-SAR according to the distance between rats, which provides guidelines for selecting the appropriate rat distance based on the number of animals and the exposure deviation within a limited working volume in an RC for large-scale experiments.