Globally, breast cancer is a major reason for female mortality. Due to the limitations of current clinical imaging, the researchers are encouraged to explore alternative and complementary tools to available techniques to detect the breast tumor in an earlier stage. This article outlines a new, portable, and low-cost microwave imaging (MWI) system using an iterative enhancing technique for breast imaging. A compact side slotted tapered slot antenna is designed for microwave imaging. The radiating fins of tapered slot antenna are modified by etching nine rectangular side slots. The irregular slots on the radiating fins enhance the electrical length as well as produce strong directive radiation due to the suppression of induced surface currents that radiate vertically at the outer edges of the radiating arms with end-fire direction. It has remarkable effects on efficiency and gain. With the addition of slots, the side-lobe levels are reduced, the gain of the main-lobe is increased and corrects the squint effects simultaneously, thus improving the characteristics of the radiation. For experimental validation, a heterogeneous breast phantom was developed that contains dielectric properties identical to real breast tissues with the inclusion of tumors. An alternative PC controlled and microcontroller-based mechanical MWI system is designed and developed to collect the antenna scattering signal. The radiated backscattered signals from the targeted area of the human body are analyzed to reveal the changes in dielectric properties in tissues. The dielectric constants of tumorous cells are higher than that of normal tissues due to their higher water content. The remarkable deviation of the scattered field is processed by using newly proposed Iteratively Corrected Delay and Sum (IC-DAS) algorithm and the reconstruction of the image of the phantom interior is done. The developed UWB (Ultra-Wideband) antenna based MWI has been able to perform the detection of tumorous cells in breast phantom that can pave the way to saving lives.

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Microwave breast imaging has been reported as having the most potential to become an alternative or additional tool to the existing X-ray mammography technique for detecting breast tumors. Microwave antenna sensor performance plays a significant role in microwave imaging system applications because the image quality is mostly affected by the microwave antenna sensor array properties like the number of antenna sensors in the array and the size of the antenna sensors. In this paper, a new system for successful early detection of a breast tumor using a balanced slotted antipodal Vivaldi Antenna (BSAVA) sensor is presented. The designed antenna sensor has an overall dimension of 0.401λ × 0.401λ × 0.016λ at the first resonant frequency and operates between 3.01 to 11 GHz under 10 dB. The radiating fins are modified by etching three slots on both fins which increases the operating bandwidth, directionality of radiation pattern, gain and efficiency. The antenna sensor performance of both the frequency domain and time domain scenarios and high-fidelity factor with NFD is also investigated. The antenna sensor can send and receive short electromagnetic pulses in the near field with low loss, little distortion and highly directionality. A realistic homogenous breast phantom is fabricated, and a breast phantom measurement system is developed where a two antennas sensor is placed on the breast model rotated by a mechanical scanner. The tumor response was investigated by analyzing the backscattering signals and successful image construction proves that the proposed microwave antenna sensor can be a suitable candidate for a high-resolution microwave breast imaging system.

In this paper, we report a compact and ultra-wide band antenna on a flexible substrate using the 5-(4-(perfluorohexyl)phenyl)thiophene-2-carbaldehyde compound for microwave imaging. In contrast to other microwave based imaging systems, such as an array of 16 antennas, we proposed a bi-static radar based imaging system consisting of two omnidirectional antennas, which reduces complexity and the overall dimension. The proposed compact antennas are 20 × 14 mm2 and designed for operating at frequencies from 4 to 6 GHz. To allow for implantation into a bra, the electromagnetic performances of the antennas must be considered in bending conditions. In comparison with the recently reported flexible antennas, we demonstrated both electromagnetic performance and imaging reconstruction for bending conditions. For the proof of concept, the electromagnetic performances both at flat and bending conditions have been verified using a homogeneous multilayer model of the human breast phantom. Our results demonstrate that the antenna, even at bending conditions, exhibits an excellent omni-directional radiation pattern with an average efficiency above 70% and average gain above 1 dBi, within the operational frequency band. The comprehensive aim of the realized antenna is to design a biodegradable and wearable antenna-based bra for early breast cancer detection in the future.

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