This study conducts a quantitative safety assessment for pacemaker wearers by evaluating their electromagnetic and thermal exposure to vehicle-mounted antennas in a realistic Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) communication scenario. An integrated exposure scenario comprising a vehicle with a V2V antenna, an implanted cardiac pacemaker, and an anatomical human model is constructed using COMSOL Multiphysics®. Coupled simulations of radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMF) and bioheat transfer are conducted to compute the specific absorption rate averaged over 10g of tissue (SAR10g) and the induced temperature rise. The results indicate that the peak SAR10g occurs in the superficial tissues at the skin of the left ear, which is the region closest to the antenna and the vehicle’s side window. The peak SAR10g of skin tissue is 0.067 W/kg, which accounts for 3.35% of the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) public exposure limit of 2 W/kg. Cardiac exposure SAR10g peaks at a significantly lower value of 0.19 mW/kg. The maximum temperature rise at the critical pacemaker lead-electrode interface is 0.061°C, substantially below the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 14708-2 safety threshold of 2°C. The corresponding temperature increase within the heart tissue is merely 0.059°C. All evaluated exposure values comply with ICNIRP guidelines for general public exposure. The findings indicate that the modeled V2V communications do not pose a health risk from RF-EMF exposure to pacemaker wearers in the investigated scenario, thereby providing key data to alleviate their travel safety concerns in current environments.
Song et al. (Sun,) studied this question.