Abstract
This paper presents microwave head imaging for the detection of tumours and experimental verification using a semi-solid complex multilayer head phantom. Phantoms are an inevitable part of medical diagnosis for obtaining an optimum design before trials in humans. Simple chemical compositions are used to create a material with electrical characteristics that are identical to those of sensitive human brain tissues. The artificially fabricated soft tissues are housed in a man-made substance that has a human skull-like form. This paper describes advancements in the development and measurement of a head phantom, devoted to the testing of a microwave-based head imaging in a realistic laboratory-controlled configuration for brain tumour detection. Dielectric property measurements are performed using a vector network analyser (VNA) with a dielectric probe arrangement and an antipodal Vivaldi antenna (48 mm × 21 mm) with a resonance frequency of 4 GHz. A total of 201 measurements were taken at room temperature (25°C), and a frequency range of 1–6 GHz was used for electrical characterization of the phantom. Measurements were taken multiple times per day, and the average value of the dielectric properties of the phantom components mimicked actual head tissues. The measured reflection coefficient (S11) value with the tumour was −28 dB and that without the tumour was −33 dB for a tumour radius of 10 mm. These measured parameters were used to construct an image in MATLAB using different confocal imaging algorithms. The experimental results for the final phantom product emulated the properties of the required tissues and the location of the tumour.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
K. Lalitha and J. Manjula, Non-invasive microwave head imaging to detect tumours and to estimate their size and location. Phys. Med. 13, 100047 (2022).
L. Kandasamy, Ground penetrating radar algorithm to sense the depth of blood clot in microwave head imaging. Curr. Med. Imag. 18(8), 845 (2022).
M.T. Islam, M.Z. Mahmud, M.T. Islam, S. Kibria, and M. Samsuzzaman, A low cost and portable microwave imaging system for breast tumor detection using UWB directional antenna array. Sci. Rep. 9(1), 15491 (2019).
V. Mariano, J.A. Tobon Vasquez, and F. Vipiana, A Novel discretization procedure in the CSI-FEM algorithm for brain stroke microwave imaging. Sensors 23(1), 11 (2023).
L. Guo and A. Abbosh, Stroke localization and classification using microwave tomography with k-means clustering and support vector machine. Bioelectromagnetics 39(4), 312 (2018).
A. Brankovic, A. Zamani, A. Trakic, K. Bialkowski, B. Mohammed, D. Cook, J. Walsham, and A.M. Abbosh, Unsupervised algorithm for brain anomalies localization in electromagnetic imaging. IEEE Trans. Comput. Imag. 6, 1595 (2020).
M. Bevacqua, G.G. Bellizzi, T. Isernia, and L. Crocco, A method for effective permittivity and conductivity mapping of biological scenarios via segmented contrast source inversion. Progr. Electromagnet. Res. 164, 1 (2019).
B. Sohani, B. Khalesi, N. Ghavami, M. Ghavami, S. Dudley, A. Rahmani, and G. Tiberi, Detection of haemorrhagic stroke in simulation and realistic 3-D human head phantom using microwave imaging. Biomed. Signal Process. Control 61, 102001 (2020).
A.E. Stancombe, K.S. Bialkowski, and A.M. Abbosh, Portable microwave head imaging system using software-defined radio and switching network. IEEE J. Electromagnet. RF Microwav. Med. Biol. 3, 284 (2019).
D.O. Rodriguez-Duarte, J.A.T. Vasquez, R. Scapaticci, L. Crocco, and F. Vipiana, Assessing a microwave imaging system for brain stroke monitoring via high fidelity numerical modelling. IEEE J. Electromagnet. RF Microw. Med. Biol. 5, 238 (2021).
R. Ullah, I. Saied, and T. Arslan, Multistatic radar-based imaging in layered and dispersive media for biomedical applications. Biomed. Signal Process. Control 82, 104568 (2023).
M.S. Islam, M.T. Islam, and A.F. Almutairi, Experimental tissue mimicking human head phantom for estimation of stroke using IC-CF-DMAS algorithm in microwave based imaging system. Sci. Rep. 11, 22015 (2021).
K. Bialkowski, S. Hill, A.E. Stancombe, A. Al-qadami, M. Heitzmann, and A. Abbosh, Stable and lifelong head phantoms using polymer composition mimicking materials to test electromagnetic medical imaging systems. IEEE J. Electromagnet. RF Microw. Med. Biol. 5, 322 (2021).
M.A. Stuchly, T.W. Athey, S.S. Stuchly, G.M. Samaras, and G. Taylor, Dielectric properties of animal tissues in vivo at frequencies 10 MHz–1 GHz. Bioelectromagnet. J. Bioelectromagnet. Soc. Soc. Phys. Regul. Biol. Med. Eur. Bioelectromagnet. Assoc. 2(2), 93–103 (1981).
A.T. Mobashsher and A.M. Abbosh, Artificial human phantoms: human proxy in testing microwave apparatus that have electromagnetic interaction with the human body. IEEE Microw. Mag. 16, 42 (2015).
Z. Gong, Y. Chen, X. Lin, K. Wu, and M.J. Cree, Generic wideband phantom design methodology for microwave medical applications. IEEE Antennas Wirel. Propag. Lett. 20, 1488 (2021).
S. Mustafa, B. Mohammed, and A. Abbosh, Novel preprocessing techniques for accurate microwave imaging of human brain. IEEE Antennas Wirel. Propag. Lett. 12, 460 (2013).
P. Kumar, R. Sinha, A. Choubey et al., A Novel Metamaterial electromagnetic band gap (MM-EBG) isolator to reduce mutual coupling in low-profile MIMO antenna. J. Electron. Mater. 51, 626 (2022).
I.G. Zubal, C.R. Harrell, E.O. Smith, Z. Rattner, G. Gindi, and P.B. Hoffer, Computerized three-dimensional segmented human anatomy. Med. Phys. 21(2), 299 (1994).
A.K. Yadav, S. Lata, S.K. Singh, A.K. Singh, T. Sharan, and M.Z.A. Yahya, Investigating the |S11| parameter of CPW-fed antennas for WiMAX and WLAN applications. J. Electron. Mater. 52(7), 4359 (2023).
A. Raveendran, M.T. Sebastian, and S. Raman, Applications of microwave materials: a review. J. Electron. Mater. 48, 2601 (2019).
N.D.G. Souza, D.V.M. Paiva, S.E. Mazzetto, M.A.S. Silva, A.S.B. Sombra, and P.B.A. Fechine, Microwave dielectric properties of Ba5Li2W3O15 ceramic with excess lithium for dielectric resonator antenna application. J. Electron. Mater. 51, 761 (2022).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Consent for Publication
All authors give permission to the journal to publish this paper.
Ethical Approval
All authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence this work.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Lalitha, K., Manjula, J. Experimental Verification of Microwave Head Imaging System Using Phantoms Fabricated from Artificial Tissue-Mimicking Materials. J. Electron. Mater. 53, 129–140 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11664-023-10756-5
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11664-023-10756-5