Radar for disease detection and monitoring

Microwave imaging of the human body, such as human breast, head, and intestine, for tumor and other disease detection has been a topic of interest for several decades. Its advantages include nonionizing and low-risk nature of microwave signals at low levels, low-cost implementation of practical systems, and the exploitation of high dielectric contrast between normal and abnormal human tissue (Rosen et al. 2002). Signals in the microwave frequency range are able to penetrate the human body and are able to collect useful information for detection and imaging of anomalies. Frequencies up to 4 GHz can penetrate skin, tissues, and clothing and can ease the requirement for the preferred half-wavelength spacing when architecting aperture antenna arrays (Zhuge et al. 2008). Good down-range resolution requires a wide operational bandwidth, whereas good cross-range resolution requires large physical or synthetic aperture.