A Planar Conformal Microwave Resonator for Subcutaneous Imaging

A planar conformal microwave resonator is developed to detect malignant tumors inside tissues. The tuned sensor with localized field distributions can noninvasively distinguish permittivity variations within tissues. The principle is based on electromagnetic-wave interaction in materials where permittivity variations due to malignant tumors among normal tissues affect the field distributions. The imaging process is conducted with a two-dimensional raster scan to record reflection coefficients in pixels. The normalized resonant frequencies and magnitudes of reflection coefficients are fused to generate localization maps. The concept is validated by promising results with tumor phantoms at different depths and of various sizes. The fused maps indicate a great potential for subcutaneous imaging on the skin in a more efficient and safer way with lower costs than the traditional nondestructive evaluation methods such as X-ray.