Ultra-Wide Band RF Quantitative Diagnostics of Burn Injuries

This proposal is dedicated to development of portable device for -on site- diagnostic of burn injury. The design will utilize a technology Ultra-Wide Band RF waves of ultra-low intensity (harmless by Federal Standards). The emitted RF waves will reflect from boundaries between tissues normal and damaged by injury to quantitatively characterize severity of burn and would require minimal skills from an operator a first responder or a member of field medical personnel. Preliminary study on organic materials similar in their dielectric properties to those of human tissues found unique features in the spectra of reflected RF waves corresponding to boundaries between organic materials with different dielectric properties. Phase I will be dedicated to calibration of the emitter, receiver and algorithms for processing the data. The work will be based on concerted effort with the Burn Division of University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, which will participate in development/experiments of imitation materials and provide in vitro specimen for fine tuning and validation. It also will participate in compiling reports as well as providing specific requirements to make device user friendly to exploit at first response calls. We will also study alternative/complementary method based on measurements of healthy/damaged tissues conductivity.