International Journal of Microwave and Wireless Technologies, page 1 of 6.

# Cambridge University Press and the European Microwave Association, 2017

doi:10.1017/S1759078717000927

research paper

A miniaturized directional antenna for

microwave breast imaging applications
md zulfiker mahmud1, mohammad tariqul islam1, md naimur rahman1, touhidul alam1
and md samsuzzaman2

A novel compact directional antenna with improved gain is proposed for microwave breast imaging (MBI) applications. The
radiating fins are modified by etching several slots to make the antenna compact and enhance antenna performance in terms
of bandwidth, gain, efficiency, and directivity. Several parameters are studied and optimized to frequency from 3.1 to
6.5 GHz, which is typically used in the breast imaging system. The electrical length of the antenna is 0.39l × 0.46l ×
0.01l at the lower frequency band. The result shows that the antenna exhibits 210 dB impedance bandwidth of 4.3 GHz
(2.7–7 GHz) with directional radiation pattern. The peak gain of the proposed prototype is 7.8 dBi and fractional bandwidth
is 92%. The time domain results show that the fidelity factor for face to face is 0.92 and for side by side is 0.62, which prove the
directivity and lower distortion of the signal. The proposed prototype is successfully simulated, fabricated, and measured.

Keywords: Antenna design, Modeling and measurements, Biomedical applications

Received 23 March 2017; Revised 1 August 2017; Accepted 6 August 2017

I. INTRODUCTION
Vivaldi antenna has drawn a great attention to the researcher
for some special applications like microwave imaging, radar
systems, and vehicular communication [1]. Vivaldi is a good
candidate for microwave imaging application due to its wide-
band, stable directional radiation pattern, high gain, endfire
radiation, obtain resonant at a lower frequency, low profile,
and low cost [2]. The initial work concentrates on developing
high gain, directive, low profile, and wide band antenna cover-
ing the frequency band 3.1–6.5 GHz for microwave breast
imaging (MBI). In a study [3], a cavity-backed Vivaldi
antenna (CBVA) has been proposed for breast phantom
measurement. By using CBVA, the size is reduced signifi-
cantly, whereas the gain does not improve. A square dimen-
sion (75 mm × 75 mm) tapered slot Vivaldi antenna has
been investigated in [4], where directive radiation pattern is
achieved by optimizing antenna parameter, but resonant at
a higher frequency not obtained. In [5], an improved
Vivaldi antenna with planner directors in front of the aperture
and transverse slot has been fabricated to increase the gain and
directivity of antenna; whereas, the dimension of antenna dra-
matically increases (110 × 260 mm) and there is some band
gap in the measured voltage standing wave ratio (VSWR).
An antipodal Vivaldi antenna for microwave imaging has
reported in [6] with very compact size by metallic bending
1
Department of Electrical Electronic and Systems Engineering, Universiti
Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia
2
Department of Computer and Communication Engineering, Patuakhali Science
and Technology University, Dumki, Patuakhali-8602, Bangladesh
Corresponding author:
M.Z. Mahmud
Email: zulfikerm@siswa.ukm.edu.my
feed line structure and the modulated Gaussian slot. It has
nice fractional bandwidth and wider operating frequency,
but the gain and reflection efficiency are not so good.
A planar antenna array that includes 12 corrugated tapered
slot elements [7] satisfies low profile and moderate gain at the
expense of significant length.
In this study, a modified, novel, and high-performance
Vivaldi antenna is presented featuring modified radiating
fins called Side Slotted Vivaldi Antenna (SSVA). Several
slots are etched away on the radiating fins to enhance the elec-
trical length, gain, and produce stronger directive radiation.
Simulated and measured results of different frequencies for
reflection coefficient, gain, efficiency, radiation pattern, trans-
mitted and received pulse for a dual mode of the antenna with
fidelity factor are presented to validate the usefulness of pro-
posed antenna for microwave imaging system. It is important
to note that the proposed prototype structure is simpler and
smaller than those studied in [1–6].
II. SSVA DESIGN AND
OPTIMIZATION
The geometric layout of proposed SSVA is shown in Fig. 1(a).
This structural modification of radiating fins, stub, and cavity
assist in achieving the compactness and electrical dimension
of the antenna with high gain. The antenna dimension is
45 mm × 53 mm fabricated on Rogers RT/Druid 5870 sub-
strates with dielectric constant of 2.33 and loss tangent
0.0012. The radiation properties of SSVA are determined by
a set of exponential curves, tapered rate, cavity structure,
slot line, back wall offset, stub arrangement, feeding position,
and the structure of radiating fins.

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 2 md zulfiker mahmud et al.

Fig. 1. (a) SSVA geometric layout, (b) fabricated prototype (front), (c) fabricated prototype (back).

In SSVA, all these parameters are adjusted and radiating Table 1 presents the value of antenna parameters. The ratio of
fins are modified by etching several slots. The irregular slot slotted (Sa) and non-slotted (Sna) area is 62:38. On both sides,
is made to increase the electrical length and achieve higher there are three identical slots (S1, S2, S3) and on upper side
gain. The main radiating lobe of SSVA is its flare, with there is an extra slot S4. The reason of this extra slot is to
height Hf ¼ 43 mm and length Lf ¼ 40 mm with tapered increase the efficiency, which increases the efficiency about
rate R ¼ 0.05 (factor determining the opening rate of the 3%. In the x-axis, the gap of each slot is 4 mm, and in the
flare) of the inner exponential profile. The exponential curve y-axis, it is from 4.5 to 7.5 mm (S1, S2, S3, S4) with single incre-
that employs Vivaldi antenna is defined as: ment. The inner surface is increased by a factor of 2 mm. An
identical quadrilateral has taken on the upper back of the radi-
x = +C1 eRz + C2 , (1) ating fins. The microstrip coupler (Lc) is situated between the
microstrip tapper and stub. A 50 V SMA connector with 2.08
dielectric constant and 0.000462 S/m conductivity is used to
x2 − x1 x1 eRz2 − x2 eRz1 feed the antenna connected to microstrip tapered line.
where C1 = and C2 = .
(e 2 − eRz1 )
Rz (eRz2 − eRz1 )

The points (x1, z1) and (x2, z2) are the peak point P2 and
the bottom points P1 of the exponential curve. The cavity Table 1. Structure design parameters of SSVA (in mm).
diameter (Cd) of resonant cavity plays a vital role in return Parameter Value Parameter Value
loss characteristic of the proposed antenna. In the proposed
antenna, cavity diameter Cd of resonant cavity is kept at Flare height (Hf ) 43 Tapered width(Tw) 4
9 mm, to maintain the lower end S11 ≤ 210 dB limitation at Flare length (Lf ) 40 Tapered length (TL) 16.4
Slotted area (Sa) 34 Coupler width (Wc) 1.4
2.7 GHz. The cavity is adjusted with the equation:
Non-slotted area (Sna) 19 Coupler length (Lc) 11.8
Slot-line width (Sw) 0.5 Slot-line length (SL) 1.5
Ca = 0.5Cd − 0.5Cd (cos u), (2) Opening rate (R) 0.05 Quadrilaterals outer (P1) 13.42
Stub radius (R1) 10 Quadrilaterals inner (P2) 9.92
Stub angle ( f ) (8) 90 Quadrilaterals height (h) 3.5
 
Sw Cavity diameter(Cd) 9 Quadrilaterals cross (d ) 4.94
where u = sin . Cavity distance (Lo) 3.42
Cd

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 a miniaturized directional antenna for microwave breast imaging applications
Fig. 2. Effect of the slot on the radiating fins to the (a) S11 and (b) gain.
The effects of slots on the radiating fins to the reflection
coefficient and gain are shown in Fig. 2. Without slot S11 is
3.9–6.4 GHz, with lower slot S11 is 2.9–6.4 GHz, with the
upper slot S11 is 3.0–6.5 GHz, and for all the slots (proposed),
S11 is 2.7–7 GHz with reflection coefficient ,210 dB.
Without slot and with the lower slot, the peak gain is about
6.7 dBi; with the upper slot, the peak gain is 7.1 dBi; but
with all slots (proposed), the peak gain is 7.5 dBi.
By using the modified radiating fins (proposed) configur-
ation, better bandwidth (about 1.8 GHz increased) and gain
(about 0.8 dBi more) have been achieved. The effect of stub
radius to reflection coefficient and gain is shown in Fig. 3.
By observing from 8.5 to 10.5 mm, it gives about 500 MHz
improved bandwidth and 0.3 dBi higher gain for 10 mm
stub radius. It is so, because the stub radius is proportional
to the flare height. A strong surface current is raised around
the cavity, which influences the directivity of the antenna.
III. ANTENNA PERFORMANCE
ANALYSIS
To verify how the side slot structure improves reflection coef-
ficient, gain, and the efficiency with the reduced size, the SSVA
is presented in Fig. 1(b). The proposed antenna has been ana-
lyzed and optimized using the software CST microwave studio
built-in trust region framework under local optimization. The
measured results were obtained using the Agilent E8362C
vector network analyzer and Satimo near-field measurement
laboratory (UKM StarLab) using Satimo passive measurement
and SatEnv software. The 210 dB operating bandwidth of
proposed SSVA is 2.7–7 GHz with two resonants at 3.83
and 5.56 GHz, which cover typical MBI shown in Fig 4(a).
The measured and simulated results have good agreement
though a little discrepancy is observed. The discrepancies
Fig. 3. Effect of stub radius to the (a) S11 and (b) gain.
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3
between simulated and measured results can be attributed to
fabrication tolerance and the coaxial cable losses during meas-
urement, which was not considered in simulation.
The peak gain of proposed prototype is 7.7 dBi and the
radiation efficiency is about 86% on an average over the oper-
ating bandwidth shown in Fig. 4(b). Antenna parameter S11 is
affected by stub angle, substrate type, and Cd, whereas gain is
affected by stub radius. The modified radiating fins play a vital
role on both S11 and gain. The measured and simulated radi-
ation patterns in two principal planes – namely co-plane and
cross-plane at resonant frequencies – are displayed in Fig. 5.
According to the satimo measurement laboratory, the
xz-plane is taken as co-plane where w ¼ 08 and z-plane is
taken as a cross-plane where w ¼ 908. The main beam is in
the boresight. More than 10 dB front-to-back ratio and
absence of side lobe ensure the higher range of the scattered
signal with low unwanted noise and higher directivity,
which is required for microwave imaging applications. The
slots in the radiating fins remarkably change the antenna char-
acteristics, especially increases the operating bandwidth, gain,
and efficiency.
The normalized antenna performance in the face-to-face
and side-by-side orientation with the distance of 230 mm is
shown in Fig. 6. From the transmitting and receiving pulse,
it is observed that in the face-to-face orientation the signal
has a lower attenuation than that of the side-by-side orienta-
tion. For this, the antenna is recommended to use face-to-face
orientation in microwave imaging applications. The highest
value of cross-correlation among transmitting and receiving
pulse evaluates the signal distortion presented as fidelity
factor. The fidelity factor for face to face is 0.93 and for side
by side is 0.61, which prove the directionality and lower dis-
tortion of the signal.
By considering the physical size of antenna, the minimum
quality factor club can be obtained from [8] Qlb ¼ hQ, where
 4 md zulfiker mahmud et al.
Fig. 4. Simulated and measured (a) S11, (b) efficiency and gain.
Fig. 5. Measured and simulated radiation patterns: (a) 3.83 GHz, (b) 5.5 GHz.
Q ¼ 1/k3 a3 + 1/ka, wave number k ¼ 2p/l, and a is the sphere
radius, the smallest sphere that encloses the antenna.√The
 upper
band of bandwidth efficiency product (Bhr)ub = 1/ 2[1/ka +
1/k3 a3 ]−1 Fig. 7 shows the Qm and (Bhr)ub for the antenna
with the peak efficiency 89% and for different values of ka.
With the value of using the resonant bandwidth of pro-
posed antenna ka ¼ 1.8. From the curve, it can be noted
that for ka ¼ 1.8, the minimum limit of Qm is 0.69 and
limit of (Bhr)ub is 0.97. The quality factor of the presented
antenna is estimated as:
√
2 b  s − 1
Qa = Where b = √ ≤ 1.
B 2 s
For the maximum allowable VSWR s ¼ 2, the proposed
antenna achieved Qa ¼ 0.73 and Bhr ¼ 0.95. From the
Fig. 6. Transmitted and received pulse in (a) face to face and (b) side by side.
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graph, the resultant value and the attainable values are close
to the antenna parameters which prove the antenna design
optimum.
Figure 8 shows the simulation model of breast with pro-
posed Vivaldi antenna. The antenna is kept at the breast
phantom and effects of breast tissues are studied. To study
the power coupled to the breast tissue, we compute the power
radiated from the surfaces of a breast model with radius of
90 mm and height is 100 mm shown in Fig. 8. The antennas
are placed at 5 mm distance from breast phantom. The
phantom contains four layers, namely, the skin layer, the
breast tissue layer or fat, and the normal air layer. The skin
(3) layer has the following properties: dielectric constant ¼ 38,
thickness ¼ 2.5 mm, and conductivity ¼ 1.49 S/m. The
breast tissue layer has a maximum width of 8.75 cm, with
conductivity ¼ 0.141 S/m and dielectric constant ¼ 5.14. The
 a miniaturized directional antenna for microwave breast imaging applications
Fig. 7. Theoretical limits and calculated Qa and (Bhr)ub.
Fig. 8. Cross-section of breast model simulation setup: (a) front view, (b)
perspective view.
radiation efficiency of proposed SSVA prototype with breast
model is shown in Fig. 9. The radiation efficiency is around
70% over the bandwidth with breast model whereas without
model is more than 80%.
The near field directivity (NFD) factor is computed using
the formula in [9, 10], which is the ratio of radiated power
through the front of the antenna and the total power radiated
through the surface of the breast model. Figure 10 shows the
NFD factor for proposed SSVA. About 90% of the total power
is radiated into the breast tissue.
IV. CONCLUSION
A novel compact SSVA for microwave imaging applications,
especially for MBI, has been measured and characterized. In
SSVA, all antenna parameters are adjusted and radiating
fins are modified by etching several slots to reduce the size
Fig. 9. Radiation efficiency of proposed prototype with breast model.
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5
Fig. 10. Simulated NFD for the proposed SSVA.
of the antenna with better antenna performance in terms of
bandwidth, gain, efficiency, directivity for special application
in the medical imaging system. The proposed antenna
achieves 210 dB operating bandwidth of 4.3 GHz (2.7–
7 GHz). The radiation pattern shows directive radiation
pattern with 7.7 dBi peak gain, average efficiency 86%,
which is better than recently published antennas. The higher
value of fidelity factor finds the satisfactory pulse handling
capacity of proposed SSVA. Close matching of the theoretical
and estimated value of quality factor ensures the optimum
antenna design. The compact structure and the covering fre-
quency of typical breast imaging bandwidth with higher
gain and directivity ensure the proposed SSVA for using in
MBI applications.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This work is supported by the Ministry of Education Malaysia
(MOE) under grant no FRGS/1/2014/TK03/UKM/01/1.
REFERENCES
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Md. Zulfiker Mahmud is an Assistant
Professor of AIS Department in Jagan-
nath University Bangladesh. He received
the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Computer
Science and Engineering from Islamic
University Kushtia, Bangladesh. Cur-
rently, he is working as a Ph.D. student
in the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
(UKM), Malaysia. He has authored or
co-authored a number referred journals and conference
papers. He is currently a Graduate Research Assistant at the
Department of Electrical, Electronic and Systems Engineering,
UKM, Malaysia. His research interests include the microwave
imaging, antenna design, satellite antennas, satellite commu-
nication, and wireless communication.
Mohammad Tariqul Islam is a Profes-
sor at the Department of Electrical, Elec-
tronic and Systems Engineering of the
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
(UKM). He is currently the Group
Leader of the Radio Astronomy Inform-
atics Group at UKM. He is the author of
over 300 research journal articles, nearly
165 conference articles, and a few book
chapters on various topics related to antennas, microwaves,
and electromagnetic radiation analysis with 11 inventory pa-
tents filed. Thus far, his publications have been cited 1990
times and his H-index is 25 (Source: Scopus). He is now hand-
ling many research projects from the Malaysian Ministry of
Science, Technology and Innovation and Ministry of Educa-
tion, and some international research grants from Japan.
His research interests include communication antenna
design, radio astronomy antennas, satellite antennas, and elec-
tromagnetic radiation analysis.
UKM, Malaysia. His research interests include the antenna
design, satellite communication, and wireless communication.
Touhidul Alam was born in Feni, Ban-
gladesh in 1989. He received B.Sc. in
Electrical and Electronic Engineering
(EEE) from International Islamic Uni-
versity Chittagong (IIUC) in 2012 and
Master of Space Science from the Uni-
versiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 2015. Cur-
rently, he is pursuing his Ph.D. degree in
the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
(UKM). From May 2012 to till now, he is working as an As-
sistant Professor at the International Islamic University Chit-
tagong (IIUC). His publication includes over 16 research
journal papers, nearly 12 conference papers, and two book
chapters on various topics related to antennas, microwaves,
and electromagnetic radiation analysis. His research interests
include the antenna, RF, electromagnetic field and propaga-
tion, electromagnetic radiation, metamaterial applications
and electromagnetic compatibility, and microwave imaging.
Md. Samsuzzaman was born in Jhenai-
dah, Bangladesh in 1982. He received his
B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Computer
Science and Engineering from the Is-
lamic University Kushtia, Bangladesh
in 2005 and 2007, respectively, and the
Ph.D. degree from the Universiti
Kebangsaan Malaysia, Malaysia 2015.
From February 2008 to February 2011,
he worked as a Lecturer at the Patuakhali Science and Tech-
nology University (PSTU), Bangladesh. From February 2011
to 2015, he worked as an Assistant Professor at the same uni-
versity. He is now working as an associate professor at the
same university. He has authored or co-authored approxi-
mately 50 referred journals and conference papers. His re-
search interests include the communication antenna design,
satellite antennas, and satellite communication.

Md. Naimur Rahman is an Assistant

Professor of Electrical and Electronics
Engineering (EEE) Department in Pa-
tuakhali Science and Technology Uni-
versity (PSTU), Bangladesh. He
received the B.Sc. (Engg.) degree in
Computer Science and Engineering
from Patuakhali Science and Technol-
ogy University (PSTU), Bangladesh.
Currently, he is working as a Masters student in the Universiti
Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), Malaysia. He has authored or
co-authored a number referred journals and conference
papers. He is currently a Graduate Research Assistant at the
Department of Electrical, Electronic and Systems Engineering,

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