Microwave Sensing System and Six-layer Phantom Model for Detection of Benign and Malignant Brain Tumors in Experimental and Simulated Environments

This paper introduces a novel, safe, low-cost, non-invasive microwave sensing system for detecting brain tumors.The proposed system represents an alternative to the conventional imaging methods such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), computed tomography (CT), and positron emission tomography (PET).The suggested system comprises a realistic 3D head phantom and a small sensor for tumor detection.The 3D head phantom consists of six layers to resemble a real human brain tissues with and without benign and malignant tumors to verify the safety of the proposed sensor.The dimensions of the proposed sensor were (32 37 0.36) mm, which operates at 3.241 GHz and 3.62 GHz for simulation and experimental, respectively.The bandwidth of the proposed sensor was 1.4 GHz with 1.56 dB gain and 0.566 SAR, which allows deeper penetration into the brain tissues.The proposed system outperforms similar systems in terms of fabricating a small antenna, which ensures a trade-off between antenna size and its gain in addition to manufacturing a realistic head phantom.The system was tested using a vector network analyzer (VNA).The test results confirm the high compatibility of the tissues and the potential for microwave-based tumor detection.