Ultra‐wideband on‐body elliptical monopole antenna

Abstract

Abstract This study presents an ultra‐wideband, elliptical slot, planar monopole antenna for early breast cancer microwave imaging. The on‐body antenna's operation is optimised by direct contact with the patient's skin. With a compact size of 9 × 7 mm, the antenna covers a wide bandwidth from 16 to 24 GHz for reflection coefficients lower than –10 dB. Besides, it also features an electrode for electrical impedance tomography applications. Verification on a volunteer's breast gives an excellent agreement with the simulation for the defined bandwidth. Furthermore, as the first stage of the system's characterisation, pork fat is also used to demonstrate the possibility to enhance the transmission between the antennas within the high loss environment. Those results propose the feasibility of implementing a high‐frequency radar system for breast cancer detection.

Keywords

• Bioelectricity
• Industrial and medical applications of microwaves
• Single antennas
• Optical, image and video signal processing
• Bioelectric signals
• Microwaves and other electromagnetic waves (biomedical imaging/measurement)