Metamaterial Vivaldi Antenna Array for Breast Cancer Detection

The objective of this work is the design and validation of a directional Vivaldi antenna to detect tumor cells’ electromagnetic waves with a frequency of around 5 GHz. The proposed antenna is 33% smaller than a traditional Vivaldi antenna due to the use of metamaterials in its design. It has an excellent return loss of 25 dB at 5 GHz and adequate radiation characteristics as its gain is 6.2 dB at 5 GHz. The unit cell size of the proposed metamaterial is 0.058λ × 0.054λ at the operation frequency of 5 GHz. The proposed antenna was designed and optimized in CST microwave software, and the measured and simulated results were in good agreement. The experimental study demonstrates that an array composed with the presented antennas can detect the existence of tumors in a liquid breast phantom with positional accuracy through the analysis of the minimum amplitude of Sii.