Development of breast tumour detection circuit and system using UWB pulse technology

The report documents the study of ultra-wideband (UWB) pulse technology for the development of a breast tumour detection circuit. With the increasing number of breast cancer occurrences each year, early detection becomes increasingly important and this can be realized with the use of UWB pulse technology for microwave imaging. This project is a continuation of a study to test the feasibility of using UWB signals for tumour detection as well as the effectiveness of various beamforming algorithms. To allow for practical hardware implementation, the simplicity of beamforming algorithms is an important consideration on top of accuracy and image resolution. Monostatic Delay-and-Sum (DAS) and Microwave Imaging via Space Time (MIST) algorithms are found to be unable to satisfy all these factors. Hence, our project first investigates the Delay-Multiply-and-Sum algorithm due to its low complexity, accuracy and high image resolution. Through simulations, it was proven effective in obtaining tumour image profiles. Next, an experimental model is being constructed to test the beamforming algorithms. Using a UWB pulse of 4 GHz central frequency and 0.4 ns pulse width, differential UWB antennas and a pseudo-breast model, monostatic scans using DAS, DMAS and MIST are performed and yielded poor results. Adopting the bistatic approach saw great improvements, particularly with the DAS algorithm. The Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output (MIMO) technique was then assumed and a leapt in performance was observed for all three algorithms. This suggests that UWB pulse technology is indeed feasible for real tumour detection and MIMO beamforming has the potential to produce accurate tumour images with acceptable resolution.Bachelor of Engineerin