A bra monitoring system using a miniaturized wearable ultra-wideband MIMO antenna for breast cancer imaging

Mahmood, S. N., Ishak, A. J., Jalal, A., Saeidi, T., Shafie, S., Che Soh, A., Imran, M. A. and Abbasi, Q. H. (2021) A bra monitoring system using a miniaturized wearable ultra-wideband MIMO antenna for breast cancer imaging. Electronics, 10(21), 2563. (doi: 10.3390/electronics10212563)

Abstract

This paper represents a miniaturized, dual-polarized, multiple input–multiple output (MIMO) wearable antenna. A vertically polarized, leaf-shaped antenna and a horizontally polarized, tree-shaped antenna are designed, and the performance of each antenna is investigated. After designing the MIMO antenna, it is loaded with stubs, parasitic spiral, and shorting pins to reduce the coupling effects and remove the unwanted resonances. Afterward, the two-port MIMO cells are spaced by 2 mm and rotated by 90° to create three more cells. The antennas are designed using two layers of denim and felt substrates with dielectric constants of 1.2 and 1.8, and thicknesses of 0.5 mm and 0.9 mm, respectively, along with the ShieldIt™ conductive textile. The antenna covers a bandwidth of 4.8–30 GHz when the specific absorption rate (SAR) meets the 1 g and 10 g standards. Isolation greater than 18 dB was obtained and mutual coupling was reduced after integrating shorting pins and spiral parasitic loadings. A maximum radiation efficiency and directive gain of 96% and 5.72 dBi were obtained, respectively, with the relatively small size of 11 × 11 × 1.4 mm3 for the single element and final dimensions of 24 × 24 × 1.4 mm3 for the full assembly. The antenna’s performance was examined for both on-body (breast) and free space conditions using near-field microwave imaging. The achieved results such as high fidelity, low SAR, and accuracy in localization of the tumour indicate that the MIMO antenna is a decent candidate for breast cancer imaging.

• Item Type: Articles
• Additional Information: Funding: This research was supported by Universiti Putra Malaysia through Putra Grant (GP/2018/9606000).
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Abbasi, Professor Qammer and Imran, Professor Muhammad
• Authors: Mahmood, S. N., Ishak, A. J., Jalal, A., Saeidi, T., Shafie, S., Che Soh, A., Imran, M. A., and Abbasi, Q. H.
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Engineering > Electronics and Nanoscale Engineering; College of Science and Engineering > School of Engineering > Systems Power and Energy
• Journal Name: Electronics
• Publisher: MDPI
• ISSN: 2079-9292
• ISSN (Online): 2079-9292
• Published Online: 20 October 2021
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2021 by the authors
• First Published: First published in Electronics 10(21): 2563
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons Licence