L-Shaped Multiband Co-Planar Dipole Antenna for Breast Imaging System

Abstract

Microwave imaging (MI) has recently gained popularity in breast imaging due to its non-ionizing and low-complexity technique. Over the microwave frequency range, the conductivity and permittivity of normal and malignant human tissues differ. A wideband operation starting at a lower frequency is preferable for the detection of potentially cancerous tissues. This paper presents a 47mm×12mm (L×W) L-shaped multiband co-planar dipole antenna that is simple, compact, cost-effective, and suitable for inverse scattering techniques in time-domain with Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FDTD) grid size of 1mm. The proposed antenna operates at multiband resonant frequencies ranging from 2 to 7 GHz, with the entire reflection coefficient curve falling below -10dB over the desired bandwidth. Comparisons between simulation and experimental results were conducted to evaluate the performance of the proposed antenna. The results demonstrated a satisfactory correlation. This antenna is designed for breast imaging systems.