In this paper, we use COMSOL Multiphysics as the finite element forward solver to obtain the electromagnetic fields at the receiving antennas while the breast is illuminated by one antenna in the array. Geometry consists of coronal slices of the breast. The FEM results are then compared with the outcome of an FDFD solver. Numerical results are presented at the end. Keywords: microwave imaging, breast cancer detection, forward models, dielectric properties.

1. Introduction

In the microwave imaging techniques, breast is illuminated by any of the antennas surrounding it in an array. Resulting scattered waves are measured and can be used to identify the tumor and other unknown boundaries by using an iterative inversion method where the forward model obtains the predicted electromagnetic fields at the location of receiving antennas at each step.

The geometry of our problem consists of breast coronal slices. Each slice is composed of several layers including skin, adipose, and fibroglandular as shown in Figure 1. The tumor is assumed to be located in the fibroglandular layer. A circular array of 16 transceiver antennas embraces the breast. The whole geometry is submerged in a coupling liquid. One antenna radiates and the other non-adjacent antennas acquire the field data.