Design and experimental test of a microwave system for quantitative biomedical imaging

Despite the numerous advancements in the field of microwave measurement systems and techniques for biomedical and industrial applications, the development of cheap and reliable microwave imaging devices is still a challenge. In this contribution, a tomograph prototype specir1cally designed for medical imaging is presented. An array of custom antennas is placed in contact with the target, and the scattered field data are collected by means of a computer-controlled switching board connected to a vector network analyzer. The acquired data are then processed with a combined qualitative/quantitative inversion scheme, whose final goal is to retrieve a spatial map of the dielectric properties of the sample. After the description of the developed system and an outline of the adopted inversion method, preliminary experimental results are shown in order to validate the effectiveness of the approach.