Metamaterial Loaded 3D Stacked Antenna for Microwave Imaging of the Human Head

A metamaterial (MM) loaded compact, flexible, stacked antenna is presented for a portable, low-cost, non-invasive microwave head imaging (MHI) system. The operating frequency of the antenna is 1.81 – 5.4 GHz. The antenna also achieves a peak gain of 5.54 dBi at a frequency of 4 GHz. The optimization of MM unit cell is performed to increase the operational bandwidth, realized gain, and efficiency of the antenna within the bandwidth. The designed compact antenna will be used to image brain cancer at a later stage. All the performance characteristics of the proposed structure were carefully examined from the simulator.