Full Wave Modelling for EM Medical Devices

The EU project EMERALD – ElectroMagnetic imaging for a novel genERation of medicAL Devices with the main objective to accelerate translation of research in EM medical imaging into clinical prototype, has officially started with the kick off meeting in Torino, Italy. The project is supported by the EU Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme in the framework of “Marie Sklodowska Curie actions”, and gathers 27 European partners: universities, hospitals and private companies. WIPL-D company is proud to be a part of this significant project.

EMERALD will enhance a collaboration network between engineers, seeking possible applications to medical imaging of electromagnetic waves at the microwave frequency, and medical doctors, working at the transfer of this technology from lab test phase to patients. Medical devices developed by the project will be portable and low cost, allowing real-time monitoring of therapy efficacy and pathology evolution. This represents the true novelty of the proposed devices compared to the traditional ones, as magnetic resonance or computerized tomography (CT), very reliable but expensive, non-portable and, in the case of CT, with possible side effects due to the use of ionizing radiations (X Rays).

The project will last 4 years and will recruit 13 PhD candidates hosted by EMERALD partners. 8 of them will develop new technologies and 5 will concentrate their work on devices. They will interact with academic institutions, private companies, hospitals with the objective of reaching the pre-clinical phase, making devices ready to be tested on patients. Possible applications of the new technologies go from detecting cardio-vascular pathologies (ictus, ischemia) to making possible non-invasive lymph nodes analysis or focused surgery for tumors.

WIPL-D company, as one of the European partners on EMERALD project, will concentrate on full wave modeling of electromagnetic medical devices. One PhD researcher will work at WIPL-D company under the project supervision of professor Branko Kolundžija with the main goal to enable the full wave simulation of medical EM imaging scenarios and to support an efficient realization of medical EM imaging prototypes. In collaboration with the School of Electrical Engineering, University of Belgrade, as a part of the project, the researcher will work towards his PhD degree, supervised by associate professor Marija Stevanovic as a mentor.