Abstract
An experimental system for early screening of a breast tumor is presented in this article. The proposed microwave imaging (MI) system consists of a moveable array of nine improved negative-index metamaterial (MTM)-loaded ultrawideband (UWB) antenna sensor with incorporation of a corresponding SRR (split-ring resonator) and CLS (capacitively loaded strip) structure, in a circular array, the stepper motor-based array-mounting stand, the adjustable phantom hanging platform, an RF switching system to control the receivers, and a personal computer-based signal processing and image reconstruction unit using MATLAB. The improved antenna comprises of four-unit cells along one axis, where an individual unit cell integrates a balancing SRR and CLS pair, which makes the antenna radiation omnidirectional over the operating frequencies. The electrical dimensions of this proposed antenna are 0.28λ × 0.20λ × 0.016λ, measured at the lowest operating frequency of 2.97 GHz as the operating bandwidth of this is in between 2.97–15 GHz (134.82% bandwidth), with stable directional radiation pattern. SP8T 8 port switch is used to enable the eight receiver antennas to sequentially send a 3–8.0 GHz microwave signal to capture the backscattered signal by MATLAB software. A low-cost realistic homogeneous breast phantom with tumor material is developed and measured to test the capability of the imaging system to detect the breast tumors. A post-processing delay-multiply-and-sum (DMAS) algorithm is used to process the recorded backscatter signal to get an image of the breast phantom, and to accurately identify the existence and located area of multiple breast tumor tissues.
Highlights
An appealing and inspiring interest in the field of electromagnetic waves and antennas in medical applications, with microwave systems, has arisen in recent years
It can be observed that the current density flow dominates around the feed and triangular strip in the low-frequency band
Good imaging lab-based breast phantom, with and without tumor condition, results have achieved from the system, which are highly desirable for performing nondestructive through the MATLAB-based DMAS imaging algorithm
Summary
An appealing and inspiring interest in the field of electromagnetic waves and antennas in medical applications, with microwave systems, has arisen in recent years. The overall dimensions of the metamaterial (MTM) [37] planar patterned antennas were 28 mm × 32 mm, covering the bandwidth from 5.3 to 8.5 GHz (46.37% fractional bandwidth) with around 4 dBi of average peak gain using high-cost Rogers substrate. A metamaterial-inspired antenna for ultrawideband (UWB) applications was reported in [39], but the dimensions are larger than the proposed antenna and do not cover the UWB band (3.1–10.6 GHz). The developed imaging system can be utilized to detect the tumor and its position in the case of breast imaging In this system, a metamaterial-inspired UWB antenna array of nine prototypes is implemented to send and receive signals. After processing the collected microwave backscattered data, positive image results had been acquired to detect the high dielectric multiple tumor objects embedded in the phantoms by using the DMAS algorithm [41]
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