Microwave radiometry has been investigated for non-invasive measurement of temperature in human body. Recent trends are to explore the capability of retrieving a temperature profile or map from a set of brightness temperatures measured by a multifrequency radiometer operating in a 1-6GHz range. The retrieval of temperature from the multifrequency measurement data is formulated as an inverse problem in which the number of independent measurement or data is limited (7) and the data suffer from considerably large random fluctuations. The standard deviation of the data fluctuation is given by the brightness temperature resolution of the instrument (0.04-0.1K). Solutions are prone to instabilities and large errors unless proper solution methods are used. Solution methods developed during the last few years are reviewed: singular system analysis, bio-heat transfer solution matched with radiometric data, and model-fitting combined with Monte Carlo technique. Typical results obtained by these methods are presented to indicate a crosssection of the present-state-of-the-development in the field. This review concludes with discussions on the radiometric weighting function which connects physical temperatures in object to the brightness temperature. Three-dimensional weighting functions derived by the modal analysis and the FDTD method for a rectangular waveguide antenna coupled to a four layered lossy medium are discussed. Development of temperature retrieval procedures incorporating the 3-D weighting functions is an important and challenging task for future work in this field.

Multifrequency microwave radiometry has been investigated for non-invasive measurement of temperatures in a human body. In this paper, we propose a new temperature profile model function, which is based on thermo-physiological considerations, for use in model fitting method of retrieving a temperature profile from a set of multifrequency radiometric data. The microwave radiometric technique using the new model function was tested by numerical simulations against animal experiment and clinical data reported elsewhere. The results show that the microwave radiometric technique can be used effectively to measure temperature profiles in tissues over a depth range from 0 to about 4.5 cm.