Data independent radar beamforming algorithms for breast cancer detection

Abstract

Ultra wideband (UWB) Microwave imaging is one of the most promising emerging imaging technologies for breast cancer detection, and is based on the dielectric contrast between normal and cancerous tissues at microwave frequencies. UWB radar imaging involves illuminating the breast with a microwave pulse and reflected signals are used to determine the presence and location of significant dielectric scatterers, which may be representative of cancerous tissue within the breast. Beamformers are used to spatially focus the reflected signals and to compensate for path dependent attenuation and phase effects. While these beamforming algorithms have often been evaluated in isolation, variations in experimental conditions and metrics prompts the assessment of the beamformers on common anatomically and dielectrically representative breast models in order to effectively compare the performance of each. This paper seeks to investigate the following beamforming algorithms: Monostatic and Multistatic Delay- And-Sum (DAS), Delay-Multiply-And-Sum (DMAS) and Improved Delay-And-Sum (IDAS). The performance of each beamformer is evaluated across a range of appropriate metrics.