Synthetic-bandwidth microwave system for breast imaging

A multi-channel ultra-wideband (UWB) system that employs the method of bandwidth synthesizing is presented. The method provides an effective solution to mitigate the challenges on UWB antenna´s implementation. The proposed system operates across the band 3.0-10.0 GHz using three broadband antennas designed to cover three sub-bands (channels). The scattered signals captured by the three antennas are combined and used to form an internal image of the human breast for cancerous tumor detection and localization. The infrastructure of the proposed imaging system and the frequency-domain image reconstruction algorithm are illustrated with an analysis of the signal propagation model. The feasibility of the system is verified by two-dimensional finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulations conducted on heterogeneous dispersive breast model.