Anthropomorphic Durable Realistic Knee Phantom for Testing Electromagnetic Imaging Systems

A knee phantom with realistic dielectric and anatomical properties has been fabricated using proper molds and equivalent mixtures. The fabricated phantom is based on a composite material of polymer and additive materials such as aluminium-oxide, and graphite. These materials are selected to achieve high dielectric properties and realistic distribution of knee tissues in addition to long-life stability. A positive mold of muscle tissue and a negative mold of skin tissue are extracted from MRI data, whilst the positive molds for bones, tendons, ligaments, and tibia are extracted from a 1:1 commercial knee joint model. Due to a lack of data about dielectric properties of human knee ligaments in microwave frequency (0.5–10 GHz), dog's ligament tissues are characterized. The fabricated tissues of the knee phantom are stable and accurately match the dielectric properties of knee tissues across the wideband 0.5 GHz to 10 GHz. The phantom will open the door for a portable, low cost, and onsite electromagnetic imaging techniques to detect knee injuries.