Overcoming insufficient microwave scattering data in microwave tomographic imaging

Abstract

One of the most challenging problems in microwave tomography is the reconstruction of dielectric properties inside parts of the human body. This is a crucial task for medical applications such as early cancer diagnostics and focused microwave thermotherapy. If not enough antennas are used, the amount of microwave scattering measurement data will be insufficient for satisfactory imaging with the conventional approach. This paper suggests a method for overcoming insufficient microwave scattering data using simultaneous reconstruction of the body shape and its interior dielectric properties, given the restriction that the shape must be regular and smooth. This restriction allows for reduced uncertainty in the reconstructed images. We developed a 2.5D electromagnetic solver and an iterative method for estimating body shape in the process of image reconstruction. This approach provides successful imaging even with insufficient scattering data. In addition, the simultaneous reconstruction leads to improved accuracy in both restorations.