This work focuses on brain stroke imaging via microwave technology. In particular, the open issue of monitoring patients after stroke onset is addressed here in order to provide clinicians with a tool to control the effectiveness of administered therapies during the follow-up period. In this paper, a novel prototype is presented and characterized. The device is based on a low-complexity architecture which makes use of a minimum number of properly positioned and designed antennas placed on a helmet. It exploits a differential imaging approach and provides 3D images of the stroke. Preliminary experiments involving a 3D phantom filled with brain tissue-mimicking liquid confirm the potential of the technology in imaging a spherical target mimicking a stroke of a radius equal to 1.25 cm.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

This paper presents the experimental validation of a microwave imaging system for real-time monitoring of brain stroke in the post-acute stage. The system exploits a low-complexity sensing apparatus and a multi-frequency microwave imaging algorithm with a novel artifact removal feature. Phantoms of a homogeneous anthropomorphic head and an ellipsoidal non-static stroke mimicking target, varying gradually from 0 cm 3 to 60 cm 3 , are employed for the experiments. The phantom and the evolving target are filled with appropriate alcohol-based mixtures to mimic the different dielectric properties of the relevant tissue. The microwave imaging scanner operates using a 22-antennas architecture formed by printed flexible antennas with a custom-made matching medium. The system provides 3-D images of the entire brain region, exploiting differential multi-view scattering measures and the distorted Born approximation to build a precomputed imaging kernel. The results show the system's capability to follow up the continuous progression of hemorrhage and ischemia zones with centimetric spatial resolution and to provide information on whether the stroke is growing or shrinking.