A Compact Dual-polarized Probe-fed UWB Antenna System for Breast Cancer Detection Applications

This article proposes an electrically small, probe-fed Ultra-Wideband (UWB) monopole antenna on a slotted truncated ground plane for breast cancer detection. The physical footprint of the proposed antenna element is 33 mm x 35 mm x 0.5 mm. This element is designed on the low-cost FR4 Epoxy substrate with a thickness of 0.5 mm. The proposed antenna has an electrical size of 0.33 lambda x 0.35 lambda x 0.005 lambda at the lowest frequency of operation; the radiator offers an impedance bandwidth of 8.34 GHz, which implies a fractional bandwidth of 115.5%. A compact dual-polarized antenna topology with two orthogonally placed probe-fed monopole antennas is proposed to achieve polarization diversity. The impedance characteristics of the individual radiating elements are maintained in spite of the electrical proximity of the radiators. The numerically computed and experimentally measured results of dual-polarized electrically small UWB antenna agree quite well. The proposed dual-polarized antenna topology is investigated for its utility in breast cancer detection in simulation.