A Novel Ultra-compact Broadband Antenna for Microwave Breast Tumor Detection

Abstract—This paper presents a novel resistively loaded antenna design for microwave breast cancer detection. The antenna is planar and ultra-compact, and can be easily manufactured using PCB technology with embedded thin-film resistive layers. Through numerical simulations, the antenna demonstrates a return loss below −10 dB over a wide frequency range from 2 to 35 GHz. For pulse radiation in the ultra-wideband (UWB) range in a biological medium, the antenna shows an excellent fidelity above 0.95 and a relatively high radiation efficiency of 39.21% in comparison to resistively loaded antennas. In addition, a design rule guideline is presented for designing the antenna to radiate in a specific background medium and with a given lower operating frequency. Finally, a complete microstrip feed design is presented for the antenna operating in the UWB range.