Article metasurface-enhanced antennas for microwave brain imaging

Eleonora Razzicchia; Pan Lu; Wei Guo; Olympia Karadima; Ioannis Sotiriou; Navid Ghavami; Efthymios Kallos; George Palikaras; Panagiotis Kosmas

doi:10.3390/diagnostics11030424

Article metasurface-enhanced antennas for microwave brain imaging

Eleonora Razzicchia^*, Pan Lu, Wei Guo, Olympia Karadima, Ioannis Sotiriou, Navid Ghavami, Efthymios Kallos, George Palikaras, Panagiotis Kosmas

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

14 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Stroke is a very frequent disorder and one of the major leading causes of death and disability worldwide. Timely detection of stroke is essential in order to select and perform the correct treatment strategy. Thus, the use of an efficient imaging method for an early diagnosis of this syndrome could result in an increased survival’s rate. Nowadays, microwave imaging (MWI) for brain stroke detection and classification has attracted growing interest due to its non-invasive and non-ionising properties. In this paper, we present a feasibility study with the goal of enhancing MWI for stroke detection using metasurface (MTS) loaded antennas. In particular, three MTS-enhanced antennas integrated in different brain scanners are presented. For the first two antennas, which operate in a coupling medium, we show experimental measurements on an elliptical brain-mimicking gel phantom including cylindrical targets representing the bleeding in haemorrhagic stroke (h-stroke) and the not oxygenated tissue in ischaemic stroke (i-stroke). The reconstructed images and transmission and reflection parameter plots show that the MTS loadings improve the performance of our imaging prototype. Specifically, the signal transmitted across our head model is indeed increased by several dB‘s over the desired frequency range of 0.5–2.0 GHz, and an improvement in the quality of the reconstructed images is shown when the MTS is incorporated in the system. We also present a detailed simulation study on the performance of a new printed square monopole antenna (PSMA) operating in air, enhanced by a MTS superstrate loading. In particular, our previous developed brain scanner operating in an infinite lossy matching medium is compared to two tomographic systems operating in air: an 8-PSMA system and an 8-MTS-enhanced PSMA system. Our results show that our MTS superstrate enhances the antennas’ return loss by around 5 dB and increases the signal difference due to the presence of a blood-mimicking target up to 25 dB, which leads to more accurate reconstructions. In conclusion, MTS structures may be a significant hardware advancement towards the development of functional and ergonomic MWI scanners for stroke detection.

Original language	English
Article number	424
Journal	Diagnostics
Volume	11
Issue number	3
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.3390/diagnostics11030424
Publication status	Published - Mar 2021

Keywords

Brain imaging
Enhanced-antenna
Metasurface (MTS)
Microwave imaging (MWI)
Microwave tomography (MWT)

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10.3390/diagnostics11030424

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title = "Article metasurface-enhanced antennas for microwave brain imaging",

abstract = "Stroke is a very frequent disorder and one of the major leading causes of death and disability worldwide. Timely detection of stroke is essential in order to select and perform the correct treatment strategy. Thus, the use of an efficient imaging method for an early diagnosis of this syndrome could result in an increased survival{\textquoteright}s rate. Nowadays, microwave imaging (MWI) for brain stroke detection and classification has attracted growing interest due to its non-invasive and non-ionising properties. In this paper, we present a feasibility study with the goal of enhancing MWI for stroke detection using metasurface (MTS) loaded antennas. In particular, three MTS-enhanced antennas integrated in different brain scanners are presented. For the first two antennas, which operate in a coupling medium, we show experimental measurements on an elliptical brain-mimicking gel phantom including cylindrical targets representing the bleeding in haemorrhagic stroke (h-stroke) and the not oxygenated tissue in ischaemic stroke (i-stroke). The reconstructed images and transmission and reflection parameter plots show that the MTS loadings improve the performance of our imaging prototype. Specifically, the signal transmitted across our head model is indeed increased by several dB{\textquoteleft}s over the desired frequency range of 0.5–2.0 GHz, and an improvement in the quality of the reconstructed images is shown when the MTS is incorporated in the system. We also present a detailed simulation study on the performance of a new printed square monopole antenna (PSMA) operating in air, enhanced by a MTS superstrate loading. In particular, our previous developed brain scanner operating in an infinite lossy matching medium is compared to two tomographic systems operating in air: an 8-PSMA system and an 8-MTS-enhanced PSMA system. Our results show that our MTS superstrate enhances the antennas{\textquoteright} return loss by around 5 dB and increases the signal difference due to the presence of a blood-mimicking target up to 25 dB, which leads to more accurate reconstructions. In conclusion, MTS structures may be a significant hardware advancement towards the development of functional and ergonomic MWI scanners for stroke detection.",

keywords = "Brain imaging, Enhanced-antenna, Metasurface (MTS), Microwave imaging (MWI), Microwave tomography (MWT)",

author = "Eleonora Razzicchia and Pan Lu and Wei Guo and Olympia Karadima and Ioannis Sotiriou and Navid Ghavami and Efthymios Kallos and George Palikaras and Panagiotis Kosmas",

note = "Funding Information: Funding: This research was supported by the EMERALD project funded from the European Union{\textquoteright}s Horizon 2020 under the Marie Sk{\l}odowska-Curie grant agreement No. 764479. The research was also funded in part by Innovate UK grant number 103920 and in part by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council grant number EP/R013918/1. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. Copyright: Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.",

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doi = "10.3390/diagnostics11030424",

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T1 - Article metasurface-enhanced antennas for microwave brain imaging

AU - Razzicchia, Eleonora

AU - Lu, Pan

AU - Guo, Wei

AU - Karadima, Olympia

AU - Sotiriou, Ioannis

AU - Ghavami, Navid

AU - Kallos, Efthymios

AU - Palikaras, George

AU - Kosmas, Panagiotis

N1 - Funding Information: Funding: This research was supported by the EMERALD project funded from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 764479. The research was also funded in part by Innovate UK grant number 103920 and in part by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council grant number EP/R013918/1. Publisher Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. Copyright: Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

PY - 2021/3

Y1 - 2021/3

N2 - Stroke is a very frequent disorder and one of the major leading causes of death and disability worldwide. Timely detection of stroke is essential in order to select and perform the correct treatment strategy. Thus, the use of an efficient imaging method for an early diagnosis of this syndrome could result in an increased survival’s rate. Nowadays, microwave imaging (MWI) for brain stroke detection and classification has attracted growing interest due to its non-invasive and non-ionising properties. In this paper, we present a feasibility study with the goal of enhancing MWI for stroke detection using metasurface (MTS) loaded antennas. In particular, three MTS-enhanced antennas integrated in different brain scanners are presented. For the first two antennas, which operate in a coupling medium, we show experimental measurements on an elliptical brain-mimicking gel phantom including cylindrical targets representing the bleeding in haemorrhagic stroke (h-stroke) and the not oxygenated tissue in ischaemic stroke (i-stroke). The reconstructed images and transmission and reflection parameter plots show that the MTS loadings improve the performance of our imaging prototype. Specifically, the signal transmitted across our head model is indeed increased by several dB‘s over the desired frequency range of 0.5–2.0 GHz, and an improvement in the quality of the reconstructed images is shown when the MTS is incorporated in the system. We also present a detailed simulation study on the performance of a new printed square monopole antenna (PSMA) operating in air, enhanced by a MTS superstrate loading. In particular, our previous developed brain scanner operating in an infinite lossy matching medium is compared to two tomographic systems operating in air: an 8-PSMA system and an 8-MTS-enhanced PSMA system. Our results show that our MTS superstrate enhances the antennas’ return loss by around 5 dB and increases the signal difference due to the presence of a blood-mimicking target up to 25 dB, which leads to more accurate reconstructions. In conclusion, MTS structures may be a significant hardware advancement towards the development of functional and ergonomic MWI scanners for stroke detection.

AB - Stroke is a very frequent disorder and one of the major leading causes of death and disability worldwide. Timely detection of stroke is essential in order to select and perform the correct treatment strategy. Thus, the use of an efficient imaging method for an early diagnosis of this syndrome could result in an increased survival’s rate. Nowadays, microwave imaging (MWI) for brain stroke detection and classification has attracted growing interest due to its non-invasive and non-ionising properties. In this paper, we present a feasibility study with the goal of enhancing MWI for stroke detection using metasurface (MTS) loaded antennas. In particular, three MTS-enhanced antennas integrated in different brain scanners are presented. For the first two antennas, which operate in a coupling medium, we show experimental measurements on an elliptical brain-mimicking gel phantom including cylindrical targets representing the bleeding in haemorrhagic stroke (h-stroke) and the not oxygenated tissue in ischaemic stroke (i-stroke). The reconstructed images and transmission and reflection parameter plots show that the MTS loadings improve the performance of our imaging prototype. Specifically, the signal transmitted across our head model is indeed increased by several dB‘s over the desired frequency range of 0.5–2.0 GHz, and an improvement in the quality of the reconstructed images is shown when the MTS is incorporated in the system. We also present a detailed simulation study on the performance of a new printed square monopole antenna (PSMA) operating in air, enhanced by a MTS superstrate loading. In particular, our previous developed brain scanner operating in an infinite lossy matching medium is compared to two tomographic systems operating in air: an 8-PSMA system and an 8-MTS-enhanced PSMA system. Our results show that our MTS superstrate enhances the antennas’ return loss by around 5 dB and increases the signal difference due to the presence of a blood-mimicking target up to 25 dB, which leads to more accurate reconstructions. In conclusion, MTS structures may be a significant hardware advancement towards the development of functional and ergonomic MWI scanners for stroke detection.

KW - Brain imaging

KW - Enhanced-antenna

KW - Metasurface (MTS)

KW - Microwave imaging (MWI)

KW - Microwave tomography (MWT)

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DO - 10.3390/diagnostics11030424

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85108949192

SN - 2075-4418

VL - 11

JO - Diagnostics

JF - Diagnostics

IS - 3

M1 - 424

ER -

Article metasurface-enhanced antennas for microwave brain imaging

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