Wearable device for microwave head imaging

Abstract

A wearable microwave head imaging is proposed for medical applications, namely stroke and cancer detection. The wearable device in a hat-like structure incorporates an array of flexible ultra-wideband antenna. The antenna array consists of 8 monopole antenna elements which act as multi-static radar. A lossy dielectric absorber is embedded inside the hat to improve the directivity of the antenna. The antenna operates in the frequency range of 1.5GHz to 4GHz which would provide sufficient penetration and resolution for the proposed head imaging system. A thin and flexible FR-4 of thickness 0.2mm is used as the substrate of the antenna. The performance of the antennae when arranged in a hat like shape structure was measured and analysed. The return loss of the antennae shows a match across all the operating frequency range. The average simulated gain of the antenna is 3 dBi.