Microwave radiometry for medical thermal imaging: theory and experiment

To ascertain the capability of multifrequency microwave radiometry for imaging an inhomogeneous temperature distribution inside a cylindrical region of the human body, an equivalent cylindrical phantom has been constructed. Experiments have been performed using a four-channel radiometer. The physical equipment is evaluated by comparison of measured and modeled data. The effectiveness of a modified algorithm for the solution of the inverse problem of temperature retrieval from radiometric data is discussed. The agreement between measured and simulated data was fairly good, decreasing, but still satisfactory, when the distance from the outer surface was increased. The hotter tube excess temperature-ideally different from zero in circular region having sharp boundaries-has been retrieved as a smoother function, showing the maximum value in position shifted along the radial direction.<>