UWB Antenna for Brain stroke and Brain Tumour

Detection
Eng. M. A. Shokry*, Prof. Dr. A. M. M. A. Allam

Faculty of Informantion Engineering and Technology

German University in Cairo
Cairo,Egypt
*marina.adel@zoho.com
abdelmegid.allam@guc.edu.eg

Abstract-UWB Pentagon antenna is designed to detect brain
stroke and brain tumour. It is operating at a band from 3.3568-
12.604 GHz in free space and from 3.818 to 9.16 GHz on the
normal head model. The antenna has dimensions of 44x30mm2.
It is fabricated on FR4-substrate with relative permittivity 4.4
and thickness 1.5mm. The antenna is simulated on the CST
Microwave Studio and measured using the network analyser.
There is a good agreement between the measured and simulated
results of the return loss of the antenna on humans head and
head phantom.
Keywords-UWB pentagon antenna, Brain tumour, Brain
stroke, CST Microwave Studio .
II ANTENNA DESIGN
An UWB pentagon antenna is implemented on FR4-substrate
with relative permittivity 4.4, electric conductivity 0.025S/m
and thickness 1.5 mm. It has dimensions 44x 30mm2 as
shown in figure 1. The antenna is feeded through a 50 ohm
matched microstrip line. Table I lists the dimensions of the
antenna. It has an omnidirectional radiation pattern. The
antenna can be obtained with different strategies, edges and
curves. It has a truncated ground such that other modes can be
on setting and it can contribute with other frequencies.

I INTRODUCTION
Cancer is one of the most dangerous diseases that affects
humans life. Statistics shows that around 13.2 million deaths
of cancer are expected in 2030 [1]. A stroke is a disturbance
in the blood supply to the brain caused when a blood vessel
blocks or bursts [2, 3]. Recovery from the stroke can be
assured if the patient is medicated within 4.5 hours.

Recently, there are many researches focus on cancer and

stroke detection using microwave based techniques. This is
due to the difference in the dielectric properties between the
healthy and defected brain tissues. Also microwave based
techniques are fast, cost effective and portable. There are
other ways that are used for brain stroke and brain tumour
detection like the computed tomography (CT) and magnetic
resonance imaging (MRI) [4, 5].

This paper focuses on designing an UWB pentagon antenna,

operating from 3.3568-12.604 GHz in free space and suitable
for microwave imaging especially for brain stroke and brain
tumour detection. The antenna has dimension 44 x30mm2 and
thickness 1.5mm. It is simulated using the CST Microwave
Studio and measured on a real human head and head phantom
using the network analyser. Fig. 1. Antenna Geometry
(a) Top view (b) Bottom view

978-1-5090-2214-4/16/$31.00 2016 IEEE

 TABLE I. ANTENNA DIMENSIONS

Dimensions Length in mm
L1 44
L2 30
L3 23
L4 20
L5 8.58
L6 7.8

III SIMULATION AND MEASUREMENTS

The pentagon antenna is measured and simulated in free

space as depicted in figure 2. It is also simulated on a
rectangular head model consists of 3 layers, skin, skull and
brain. The electrical properties of the head model are depicted
in table II. Figure 3 shows the structure of the simulated
Fig. 4. Measurement of the antenna on humans head
phantom model and its dimensions are presented in table III.
The antenna is measured on a real humans head as shown in
figure 4. Figure 5 depicts the measured return loss of the
antenna on real human head and the simulated one on normal
head model [6].

Fig. 5. Return loss of the antenna on humans head

IV EFFECT OF TUMOUR ON THE ANTENNA

PERFORMANCE
The antenna is investigated on humans head model with a
spherical shaped tumour of radius 24.6, electric permittivity
Fig 2. Return loss of the antenna in free space 70 and loss tangent 0.23 as stated in [7, 8] and shown in
figure 6. The return loss of the antenna with tumour is shown
TABLE II. ELECTRICAL PROPERTIES OF HUMAN HEAD MODEL in figure 7.
Electric permittivity Electric conductivity
Brain 49.7 0.59

Skull 17.8 0.16

Skin 46.7 0.69

TABLE III. DIMENSIONS OF HEAD MODEL

Dimensions Length in mm
X1 90
X2 90
X3 79
X4 72

Fig. 6. Antenna on head model with tumour

Fig. 7. Return loss of the antenna with tumour

Fig. 3. Structure of humans head model.
 It is clear that there is a frequency shift between the antennas
simulated on normal humans head and the one simulated on
humans head with tumour. The antenna is operating at a
band from 3.818 to 9.16 GHz on the normal head model
while operating at a band from 4.031 to 9.19 GHz which
means that there is 213 MHz difference in frequency between
the normal and infected ones. Thats to say the -10dB
crossing for the normal one and the one with tumour are
shifted by this value.
V EFFECT OF THE STROKE ON ANTENNA
PERFORMANCE
The antenna is investigated on the human head model with
stroke as shown in figure 8. The stroke is presented in the
model with a cylindrical brick of thickness 0.1 mm and
different radii. The stroke has the same electrical properties of
the blood as described in [9, 10]. Figure 9 shows the return
loss of the antenna with stroke at different radii.
Fig. 8. Antenna on head model with stroke
Fig. 9. S-parameter of the antenna with stroke
It is clear that there is a shift between the antenna on the
normal head model and the head model with stroke. The
antenna is operating at a band from 4.002 to 9.16 GHz on the
head model with stroke which means that the -10 dB crossing
is shifted by 218 MHz from the simulated one on normal head
model. On the other hand, there is no change on the antenna
performance between the different stroke radii.
VI ANTENNA INVESTIGATIONS ON HUMANS HEAD
PHANTOM
This section is devoted to show the effect of a humans head
phantom as described in [11] on the antenna performance.
Figure10 shows the measurement of the antenna on the
phantom. The return loss of the antenna measured and
simulated on the normal head phantom is shown in figure 11.
It is clear that there is a good agreement between the
measurement and the simulated results.
Fig. 10. Measurements of the antenna on normal antenna
Fig. 11. Simulated and measured return loss of the antenna on head model
VI CONCLUSION
The paper illustrates the design and implementation of a
pentagon antenna for brain cancer and stroke detection,
positioned directly on humans head. It is simulated using
CST microwave studio and fabricated on FR-4 substrate with
relative permittivity 4.4 and thickness 1.5mm. It is pointed
out that there is a frequency shift of 213 MHz between the
normal head model and the one simulated with tumour while
a shift of 218MHz when simulated on head model with
stroke. The pentagon antenna is also measured on a normal
head phantom. It is clear that there is a good agreement
between the measured and simulated results.
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