Breast Cancer Detection Using a Metasurface-Based Microwave Probe

This work introduces an electromagnetic energy scanning technique with specific application to the detection of breast cancer. The technique is based on a metasurface field detector probe composed of an ensemble of electrically small elements resonating at 700 MHz, where the middle single element represents the field detector. The sensor scans the two-dimensional plane that contains the energy transmitted through the breast. Once the scan is completed, we generate a contrast image composed of N X N pixels that represent the different components of the breast tissue. We then compile a dataset of these contrast images to train a convolutional neural network (CNN) to differentiate between healthy and unhealthy breast tissue. Thie probe provides a resolution that cannot be matched by either electrically small probes or resonance-based probes that have dimensions comparable to the wavelength. The field emanating from a specific structure, such as a human female breast, can be scanned by the proposed probe to achieve a resolution in the millimeter range while operating in the low-microwave frequency spectrum. The probe was tested numerically, and a prototype was tested experimentally, demonstrating its effectiveness in providing a field resolution of approximately 5 mm.