A low cost and efficient breast cancer detection method with a staircase shaped ultrawide band dielectric resonator antenna using monostatic radar based microwave imaging technique

Abstract

In this article, a staircase-shaped ultra-wide band dielectric resonator antenna (DRA) has been used as a sensor for the detection of breast tumor by monostatic radar-based microwave imaging (MRMWI). The proposed DRA has fractional bandwidth (BW) 98.5% and a high peak gain 5.98 dB along with dual polarization behaviour from 5.12 to 8.2 GHz and 11.02-13.8 GHz. In the MRMWI setup, DRA is placed over the breast phantom at a distance of 7 mm and provides a safe exposure of radiation (<1.6 W/Kg). For simulation, it rotates around the phantom at a fixed interval in elevation (0-180°) and azimuthal (0-360°) planes. It works as a radiate and receives the reflected signals towards and from the scanned area simultaneously. To validate the results, fabricated DRA is connected to a vector network analyzer and rotates (as done for simulation) around the artificial breast phantom. That is a replica of the human breast made from gelatin+sugar, Vaseline and wheat flour+water equivalent to skin, fat and tumor respectively. Afterward S11 responses are recorded in the presence and absence of tumor inside the phantom. A significant variation in recorded values leads to the detection of tumors that are processed further in beam-forming algorithms; delay and sum (DAS) and delay-multiply and sum (DMAS) to reform the 2-dimensional image of tumor in MATLAB.