This paper examines a time reversal beamforming imager for detecting early stage breast cancer tumors. We use numerical simulations and electromagnetic tissue experiments to validate the imager. Microwave radiation is known to be a potential diagnostic imaging tool for breast cancer detection that could complement the standard X-ray mammography. Electromagnetic radiation waves undergo multiple scattering due to the inhomogeneities of biological tissues. In this paper, we demonstrate that our proposed time reversal imager exploits successfully the multiple path electromagnetic scattering to achieve higher resolution and robustness than the direct subtraction beamforming imager.
He Zhu, José M. F. Moura, Michael Wahl, Qiu