A wideband microwave tomography system with a novel frequency selection procedure

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Electromagnetics
• Medical Imaging

Background:

• Microwave imaging offers non-ionizing radiation for biomedical applications.
• Antenna coupling is a significant challenge in dense antenna array systems.
• Wideband data acquisition can potentially improve imaging resolution and accuracy.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present a 2-D wideband microwave imaging system for biomedical applications.
• To introduce a novel frequency selection method to mitigate antenna coupling effects.
• To evaluate the system's performance using nonlinear reconstruction algorithms.

Main Methods:

• Development of a 2-D wideband microwave imaging system (3-6 GHz) with 24 antenna elements.
• Implementation of a frequency selection technique to avoid problematic coupling frequencies.
• Application of two nonlinear reconstruction schemes: enhanced distorted Born iterative method and multiplicative regularized contrast source inversion.

Main Results:

• Demonstrated successful imaging of dielectric phantoms in free space.
• Showcased quantitative reconstruction of dielectric objects using the frequency selection approach.
• Validated that wideband data acquisition improves inversion results compared to single-frequency data.

Conclusions:

• The developed 2-D wideband microwave imaging system shows promise for biomedical applications.
• The novel frequency selection method effectively addresses antenna coupling issues.
• Wideband data acquisition combined with advanced reconstruction techniques enhances quantitative dielectric imaging.