Non-invasive measurement of cholesterol in human blood by impedance technique: an investigation by 3D finite element field modelling

This paper concerns detection of particle concentration (e.g. cholesterol) in conductive media (e.g. human blood) by impedance technique. The technique is based on changes in the impedance measurement across a given conducting medium due to changes in the particle concentration. The impedance is calculated by calculating the current through the conducting media produced by electric field distribution between two electrodes. This is done by modelling and computation of 3D electric fields between the electrodes for known voltages applied between them using the well-known finite element method (FEM). The complexity of such FE models is attributed to particle distribution, their geometric and material parameters, and their shape and size which can be of many orders of magnitude smaller than the overall problem domain under investigation. This paper overcomes this problem by adopting an effective particle coagulation (aggregation) strategy in FE modelling without significantly affecting the accuracy of field computation.