Design and Optimization of UWB Vivaldi Antenna

for Brain Tumor Detection

He Yu1, Guo-hui Yang1, Qun Wu1, Ming-hui Su2
1 School of Electronics and Information Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001,China
2 China Academy of Space Technology (Xian), Xian 710100, China
yuhejing521@126.com, gh.yang@hit.edu.cn

AbstractAn ultra-wideband(UWB) Vivaldi antenna
designed to detect brain tumor is presented in this paper. By
transforming the conventional two-layer Vivaldi antenna into a
three-layer structure, the cross-polarization effect of antenna is
sharply reduced. Based on different conductivity of brain tissues,
the microwave absorption effect of brain tumors is analyzed in
the end, which indicates the broad prospect of microwave
imaging system in the field of tumor detection.
KeywordsUWB Vivaldi antenna; tumor detection; microwave
imaging; specific absorption rate (SAR)
I. INTRODUCTION
Microwave imaging has drawn much interest in tumor
detection due to its accuracy and resolution. In order to ensure
the proper depth that signals can penetrate into human tissues
and resolution of the image, the bandwidth of antenna should
be wide enough to satisfy the requirement. Early and recent
investigations on microwave-based tumor detection have been
growing mature[1]. Due to the different conductivities of the
lesions and normal tissue, the electromagnetic energy absorbed
by the tumor in the same period is higher, which is the
principal of detection [2].
The Vivaldi antenna is widely used for the UWB systems
due to its broad bandwidth, low cross polarization and directive
property [3].The same gain at different directions of Vivaldi
antenna ensures that it radiates energy equally at each point.
Other merits of Vivaldi antenna such as its stable input
impedance, simple structure for easy integration with planar
circuit make it possible to be used in tumor detection system[4].
In this paper, a three-layer Vivaldi antenna is designed to
detect brain tumor. According to the general consideration of
the biological properties of different tissues, a brain model with
tumor of three dimensions is simulated in the electromagnetic
simulation software CST Microwave Studio. The simulation
results conclude its work performance so that it is possible to
adjust the parameters of the Vivaldi antenna to change the
radiation performance. In the end, the brain model is exposed
to the radiation of the optimal Vivaldi antenna and the
microwave absorption effect of brain tumor tissues is analyzed
after calculating the specific absorption rate(SAR) of tumor
tissue.
II. ANTENNA DESIGN AND DISCUSSION
A. Antenna design and optimization
To achieve excellent performance of Vivaldi antenna, two
factors should be taken into account. One is the antenna feed
between the up and down surfaces of the stripline, which is
called the Balun section. The other is the radiation part, which
consists of copper plates.
Fig.1 shows the feed port cross-sectional view of the
proposed antenna with 7GHz bandwidth and the central
frequency locates at 8.5GHz.The conventional two-layer
Vivaldi antenna(depicted in Fig.1(a))cannot acquire ideal
working performance due to the cross-polarization effect[5],
and the return loss is shown in Fig.2.
In order to improve the performance of antenna, a three-
layer structure is designed(Fig.1(b)), which is called stripline
structure. Geometrical dimension of the three-layer stripline
antenna is 60mm30mm3mm and a microstrip transition is
employed[6], whose size is 11mm long and 1.9mm wide. The
substrate of the antenna is loss free FR4 with thickness of 3mm
and dielectric constant of 4.3.
The width of the opening exponential line is connected
with the operating frequency of antenna. Generally, the
beginning of the radiation part relates to the upper limit
frequency and the ending of the radiation part corresponds to
the lower limit frequency[7].Therefore, the width of the
opening exponential line is determined by (1):
c
op > max =
2 2 f min r
(1)
where max is the maximum wavelength in the medium.
(a) (b)
Figure1 Cross-sectional view(a)Two-layer antenna geometry (b)Three-layer
antenna geometry
Figure 2 Return loss of two-layer structure Vivaldi antenna

978-1-4673-8983-9/16/$31.00 2016 IEEE

 As for the inner section of the radiation part, the curve fits level of the design are low enough to satisfy the requirement of
in the exponential function, which is illustrated as (2): end-fire antenna.
y = c1enx + c2
(2)
Once the operating frequency band is set up and the open
width is calculated using(1), the parameters c1 and c2 can be
determined by the following equations:
y y1
c1 = 2

e e nx1
nx2
(3)
y1e nx2 y 2 e nx1
c2 =
e nx2 e nx1 (4)
According to (3) and (4), the model of proposed antenna
can be constructed by CST Microwave Studio. As is depicted
in Fig.3(a), the up and down layers are symmetrical structure,
(a) (b)
which are components of one side of the radiation part, the
Figure 5 Radiation pattern (a) f=5GHz,Theta=90,xoy plane (b) f=5GHz,
other side of the radiation part is portrayed like Fig.3 (b),
Phi=0,xoz plane
which is the interlayer of the substrate.
c) Return loss
Another important factor of antenna that needs to be
considered is the return loss and the simulation result is
depicted in Fig.6. In the operating bandwidth, the relative
bandwidth is larger than 25%,which meets the needs of ultra
wide band. Besides, the return loss is considerably below -10
dB, which means the designed antenna at the feed port is
perfectly matched with the transmission line and realize the
(a) (b) goal of low power consumption and high efficiency power
Figure 3 (a)Up and down symmetrical layer structure (b)Interlayer structure transmission.
B. Simulation and discussion
a)Gain
As is shown in Fig.4, the maximum gain of the proposed
optimal Vivaldi antenna can reach 7.78 dB at 8.5GHz. It can be
seen that the maximal radiation is along the central axis of the
tapered slot.

Figure 6 Return loss of three-layer Vivaldi antenna

III. TUMOR DETECTION RESULTS

The conductivity of tumor tissue is much larger than the
normal tissue, which means more electromagnetic energy will
be absorbed in the same period. Under the radiation of the
antenna(Fig 7),the absorbed electromagnetic energy will turn
into thermal energy, which displays the temperature difference
at the surface of the tissue.

Figure 4 Gain of three-layer Vivaldi antenna at 8.5GHz

b) Farfield pattern
The simulation results of antenna farfield radiation pattern
at 5GHz is displayed in Fig.5.
When theta is 90, i.e., at xoy plane,3-dB beamwidth in
Fig.5(a) is approximately 100.Similarly, when Phi=0, i.e., at
xoz plane, 3-dB beamwidth in Fig.5(b) is approximately 150.
It is evident that compared with the main lobe, the side lobe
Figure 7 Schematic diagram of tumor detection by Vivaldi antenna
 According to the temperature gradient, the microwave
imaging of the brain tumor is acquired. A parameter to measure
the electromagnetic radiation of a certain quantity body tissue
under given period is the specific absorption rate(SAR):
E
2
SAR =
(5)
is the conductivity of human tissue, with unit of S/m; E is
the effective value of electric field intensity, with unit of V/m;
presents the density of human tissue, with unit of kg/m .
(a)1g tumor tissue, f=8.5GHz
(b)1g tumor tissue, f=7GHz
(c) 10g tumor tissue, f=7GHz
Figure 8 SAR results (a) 1g tumor tissue, f=8.5GHz (b) 1g tumor tissue,
f=7GHz (c) 10g tumor tissue, f=7GHz
Comparing the SAR distribution diagram of Fig.8 (a) and
(b), as for the same quantity of 1g tumor, more energy will be
absorbed at higher frequency. Moreover, Fig.8(a) and (c)
indicates that at the same frequency 7GHz, tumor with larger
mass has higher microwave specific absorption rate.It can be
seen from the simulation result that this proposed antenna can
detect the tumor in human body by its superior performance
and meet the requirement of tumor detection applications.
It is verified by the laboratory experiment that this
3 microwave imaging method is not only effective but
economical, which has a bright future for tumor detection.
IV. CONCLUTION
In this paper, a three-layer UWB Vivaldi antenna for brain
tumor detection has been designed and discussed. It is verified
in the simulation results that three-layer structure has better
performance than traditional two-layer antenna. The SAR
results of tumor tissue show that this kind of ultra-wideband
Vivaldi antenna provides a wide prospect in future tumor
detection research.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work is supported by the CST Microwave Studio and
the group staff at Electronics and Information Engineering
Department in Harbin Institute of Technology.
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