Conductivity and permittivity measurements of children and adult’s hands covering mobile communications frequency bands

This paper investigates the use of a simple open-ended coaxial line probe for measuring in vivo the relative permittivity and conductivity of human hands at microwave frequencies. In particular, we investigate how these properties are affected by the force with which the probe is pushed into the skin and the time over which the probe is in contact with the skin. Results show these two variables have a large influence on the measured results. We identify a suitable test procedure for use on a large scale volunteer study and present initial relative permittivity and conductivity results from more than 150 volunteers, ranging from ages 11 to 65