Intercomparison of the Averaged Induced Electric Field in Learning-Based Human Head Models Exposed to Low-Frequency Magnetic Fields

Anatomical human models have been widely used in the assessment of induced field strength for low-frequency (LF) electromagnetic field exposure. One bottleneck is the assignment of a single electrical conductivity to all the voxels of the corresponding tissue. This simplification is known to cause computational artifact; therefore, a large reduction factor was considered in international guidelines and standards. Recently, head models with nonuniform conductivities generated using deep learning networks were proposed, and the effect on the reduction of staircasing artifacts was demonstrated. If the effectiveness of the models is confirmed for different models and codes, it would be useful to derive the relationship between the internal and external field strengths needed for setting the exposure limit. The Subcommittee 6 of the IEEE International Committee on Electromagnetic Safety Technical Committee 95 launched a working group to conduct the first intercomparison study of the induced electric field in learning-based head models exposed to LF magnetic fields. Seven international research groups have cooperated in this joint study. The highest relative difference (RD) in averaged electric fields was 23%, which is attributable to the difference caused the by scalar potential finite difference (SPFD) method and finite element method. Except for one group, the RDs in the 100(th) and 99(th) percentile values of the averaged electric field using the SPFD method with different solvers and codes were below 1%, indicating that the uncertainty due to different codes is sufficiently small under the same exposure scenarios. The findings would be informative for future revision of exposure limits and reduction factors in the exposure standard, which is closely related to computational uncertainty.