Mono pulse confocal microwave imaging in breast cancer detection

Mono pulse algorithm for confocal microwave imaging (CMI) for breast cancer detection is presented in this paper. All the antennas are used as receiver but only one is also used as transmitter. The transmitted signal is emitted for only once, thus the gross electromagnetic wave energy to the breast is reduced and the diagnosis time can be saved. Two confocal microwave imaging algorithms are presented in this paper: delay-sum-max and delay-production-sum. Both algorithms use the same delayed backscattered signals as the convectional CMI. The difference is how to use the delayed signals to form the image of the scattering intensity. Delay-sum-max method adds the signal together to generate the different value in confocal point via coherent and incoherent addition. Delay-production-sum algorithm products the delayed signal so as to make the assigned value in the confocal point outside the tumor is nearly zero. The image results can be compliment for more confirm diagnosis. Finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method is used for simulation on 3 models of different tumor arrangements. The results show both methods are effective in detecting single-tumor, while there are some limitations in dealing with multi-tumor.