A Compact 4 x 4 Planar UWB Antenna Array for 3-D Breast Cancer Detection

A compact 4 x 4 planar ultrawideband (UWB) antenna array with the total size of 44 x 52.4 mm(2) was developed for radar-based breast cancer detection system. The center frequency and the bandwidth of the antenna were 6 and 12.5 GHz, respectively. The breast phantom materials were developed to fit the characteristics of the measured human breast tissues. A quasi-three-dimensional confocal imaging was performed using the breast phantoms. It was confirmed that the compact 4 x 4 antenna array could detect a 5 x 5 x 5-mm(3) tumor phantom in an inhomogeneous structure with a glandular phantom and resolve the two separate tumor phantoms, which were located at the depth of 23 mm with the spacing of 10 mm.