Charachterization of two antipodal Vivaldi antennas for breast cancer near-field radar imaing

This letter assesses the performance of two Antipodal Vivaldi Antennas, which have been previously designed for a fused DBT/NRI breast imaging system, through two simple experiments. In the first experiment, the s-parameters of both antennas, when they are positioned front-to-front, are obtained and compared with simulations. In the second experiment, the capability of the antennas in detecting a metallic bearing ball submerged in sunflower oil is evaluated. A mechatronic system is used to move the antennas over the bearing ball, and the scattered field is measured using a vector network analyzer operating in the 1-3 GHz frequency band. The s-parameters of the fabricated antennas are in good agreement with those predicted by the simulations, and they are capable of measuring the scattered field from the metallic ball when they move over it.