An Improved Breast Cancer Biosensing System Using a Slotted Patch Antenna With a Metamaterial Surface

In recent years, ultrawideband (UWB) microwave detection technology has been widely utilized by various researchers to develop biosensors for breast cancer diagnosis. This work emphasizes on design, analysis, and integration of an improved antenna biosensor into an in-house developed breast cancer detection system. The proposed biosensor comprises a slotted rectangular microstrip patch (SRMP) antenna that is topped with a metamaterial surface (MS) to form a compact size of $20\times 20\times 10$ mm3. The slotted patch is considered to improve the −10-dB impedance bandwidth (−10 BW) while incorporating an MS, which comprises a $2\times 2$ dual-circular ring element array, is utilized to enhance the biosensor focusing power achieving a maximum gain of 5.6 dBi with a wide −10 BW of 9.5 GHz (3.5–13 GHz). The time-domain analysis of the antenna biosensor exhibited a minimal group delay of less than 1 ns and fidelity factors (FFs) of 70.94% for side-by-side (SbS) and 85.01% for face-to-face (FtF) arrangements. These results underscore the biosensor’s resistance to distortion and its suitability for real-time microwave imaging (MWI) in biomedical applications. Full-wave simulations as well as measured results are obtained using a complete breast cancer detection system setup, which comprises two antenna biosensors (Tx antenna and Rx antenna), fabricated breast phantoms (BPhs) with different tumor sizes and distribution, and an automated electromechanical imaging system, was successfully used to perform MWI of breast cancer tumors of different sizes and locations.