Conformal array antenna with the aspirator for the microwave mammography

Recently, the microwave imaging techniques attract attentions as a screening method of early breast cancer detection that takes place of an X-ray mammography. There are two categories of UWB radar and microwave tomography. A lot of basic experiments using the phantom have been reported. For such experiments, antenna array and breast are soaked in the coupling liquid in order to maximize the amount of microwave energy coupled into the breast. In addition, we must know 3D surface of the breast to remove artifact reflected by skin using averaging technique in UWB radar or to solve illposed problem in microwave tomography. In this paper, we propose a conformal array antenna for microwave mammography. When we adopt this antenna, it is not necessary to soak the breast in coupling liquid and to know 3D surface of the breast. Several antenna elements are embedded in inside of hemisphere made by silicon resin. A valve is provided on the top of the hemisphere and is connected with the aspirator. Putting the hemisphere on the breast and pulling out air by the aspirator, we made skin surface contact with inside of the hemisphere. Antenna element is designed so as to match under the condition that breast contacts with the element. Since breast surface is formed with inside of hemisphere, it is not required to measure 3D surface of the breast.