Effects of antenna characteristics on performance of microwave based system designed for early stage congestive heart failure detection

Heart failure is one the major causes of mortality in recent decades. One of its main symptoms is the accumulation of fluid (mainly water) inside the lungs. Fluid accumulation changes the dielectric properties of the lungs´ tissues. Thus, microwave radar techniques can be utilized to detect those properties changes as an early sign of congestive heart failure. The directivity and operating bandwidth of the employed antenna in microwave techniques are among the important factors that affect the accuracy of the detection. In this paper, we investigate these effects using a fully integrated system designed for the early stage congestive heart failure detection. This system consists of an adjustable platform which holds and displaces the antenna along a torso phantom. The utilized antenna is connected to a custom made microwave transceiver which performs the data acquisition process. A laptop is used to control the operation of the system and process the captured signals.