Foundation Principles and Dosimetry of Radiofrequency Radiation

This chapter discusses the foundational work on the appropriate measurements of nonionizing electromagnetic radiation (NEMR) absorption and interaction that are relevant to human health, safety, and bioeffects, whether innocuous or pathogenic. The United States Air Force (USAF) and collaborating academic researchers (especially from the University of Utah, Department of Electrical Engineering) made a major contribution (perhaps the most important in the field) to understanding and implementing the relative measurements of NEMR for health and safety purposes in the form of several editions of the Radiofrequency Radiation Dosimetry Handbook. The fourth edition is an elegant teaching text for those who are not electrical engineers or physicists. It is a necessity for biological and biomedical researchers interested in the health and physiological effects of NEMR and who wish to make measurements of doses of NEMR that are relevant to the real world and well defined in terms of exposure dosimetry. In this chapter, I summarize this work and show its relevancy to the problem at hand.