UWB microwave imaging system with a novel calibration approach for breast cancer detection

A microwave imaging system prototype has been developed for early breast cancer detection. The system is based on impulse Ultra-Wideband (UWB) radar technology. A novel, practical calibration method has been applied in our system to remove the large received signals due to both skin backscattering and Tx/Rx antenna coupling, and to underline the reflection/scattering from object of interest. This calibration method is crucial to identify the malignant tissues in a low-contrast condition that the difference of dielectric properties between malignant tissues and healthy tissues is not more than 10%. The system has been used to detect the cylindrical targets from a breast model. With this novel calibration approach, our system has successfully detected and localized the targets with a diameter of 5mm in a low-contrast condition. Details of the experimental setup and experimental imaging results will be discussed in this paper.