A Phantom Study on the Propagation of NIR Rays under the Skin for Designing a Novel Vein-Visualizing Device

Abstract

Recently, by compensating shortcomings of existing ones, a novel vein-visualizing device was proposed. It highly improves the intuitiveness and the accuracy of venipuncture, but further developments are still required. In this study, as a preliminary work for the device, a phantom experiment was conducted on the propagation of NIR rays under the skin. For this, a NIR diode module and an agar phantom including a vein model were produced, and then, the propagation of NIR rays inside of the phantom was captured by an IR camera. If NIR rays are casted perpendicularly to the surface just above the vein model, the vein model can take much light, but the skin must be occluded with the NIR diode module. Also, if the module is shifted in order to get a wide field of vision, the vein model may not receive enough light. However, in the case of a large incidence angle, enough NIR rays can reach the vein model, and simultaneously, a wide field of vision can be obtained.