Non-iterative beamforming based on Huygens principle for multistatic ultrawide band radar: application to breast imaging

This study examines the performance of a simple microwave beamforming method using the Huygens scattering principle (called here the Huygens principle method) for detecting breast lesions. The beamforming method is similar to non-iterative time reversal in that the wave received is propagated back into the material, although differs in its treatment of attenuation. The single pass algorithm does not require a solution to an inverse model, making it computationally efficient and so able to offer a throughput appropriate for clinical use. Its performance is compared with time-delay beamforming, which may be implemented with similar computational complexity, on a set of phantoms, including a lossy medium, mimicking breast tissue. The method was used to image a commercially fabricated anatomically shaped breast phantom with multiple hidden inclusions mimicking tumours. The procedure was able to identify and localise significant scatterers inside the volume, with only approximate a-priori knowledge of the dielectric properties of the target object, in spite of its underlying assumption of a single scatterer model.