Early-Stage Detection of Melanoma Skin Cancer Using Contactless Millimeter-Wave Sensors

Studies show that the early (stage I) diagnosis of cancer increases the survival rate of patients, and significantly reduces treatment costs. Millimeter-wave radars can detect skin tumors based on the difference between the electrical properties of melanomas and healthy skin tissues. This paper proposes a low-power multitone continuous-wave radar design at 77GHz for biomedical imaging applications, to be used for skin cancer detection. The sensor implementation is based on a low-cost Miniature Hybrid Microwave Integrated Circuit (MHMIC) design. The entire sensor was integrated on a 0.127mm thin ceramic substrate. Two 16-element patch antenna arrays are implemented in the transmitter and receiver modules. The receiver is a six-port homodyne quadrature down-converter. The integrated power detectors are fabricated using HSCH-9161 Schottky diodes. The sensor was encapsulated in a metallic fixture with dimensions 35 by 45mm. Two cascaded amplifier circuits are designed and implemented for amplifying baseband voltages at the output of each power detector. The proposed radar design has the ability to detect the dielectic properties of tissues, making it suitable for the detection of melanomas with an accuracy on the order of tens of microns.