Radio Frequency Electromagnetic Field Exposure of Insects at 10 cm from an Antenna

The increased exposure of insects to radio frequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMFs) may have an impact on their health. The RF-EMF absorbed power in certain insects is considerably higher in the range of 6-300 GHz, due to more comparable wavelengths to their size. Likewise, in this range, the near-field interactions between antennas' and certain insects can significantly affect antennas' performance. Therefore, in this work, the volume and frequency dependencies of the RF-EMF absorbed power in various insects is evaluated in the range of 6-120 GHz, when placed at a fixed separation distance of 10 cm between the insects and the dipole antenna. Moreover, the effect of these insects on the dipoles' performance is assesed. To this aim, numerical simulations using finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) were performed on insect models obtained through micro-CT scanning. These simulation results showed an average absorbed power of 3.1 mW/W at 6 GHz and of 3.4 mW/W at 120 GHz. Additionally, they revealed that the absorbed power increases with increasing insect volume at an approximate rate of 2.5 muW/Wmm^3 at 6 GHz, and of 1.2 uW/Wmm^3 at 120 GHz, and that this rate of increase lowers with increasing frequency. Furthermore, results showed that the dipoles' gain pattern have a dependency on the insects' volume with a stronger dependency for higher frequencies.