Antenna Configurations of Microwave Breast Imaging

The quality of the forward scattering data is crucial for the microwave breast imaging. Early study showed that the quality of the forward data varies in different polarization basis. In the actual imaging scenarios where antenna arrays are usually required, mutual coupling effects between the antenna elements would affect the quality of the forward data and thus the resultant images. Here, we aim to determine how the array size and thus the mutual coupling could impact on the forward data. The forward problems of different array configurations are studied and evaluated via full-wave numerical simulations, and found that small arrays with stronger coupling are preferred.