AN INTEGRATED SIMULATION APPROACH AND EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH ON MICROWAVE INDUCED THERMO-ACOUSTIC TOMOGRAPHY SYSTEM

Microwave induced thermo-acoustic tomography (MI- TAT) has great potential in early breast cancer detection because it utilizes the advantages of both microwave imaging and ultrasound imaging. In this paper, a fast and e-cient simulation approach based on a hybrid method which combines flnite integration time domain (FITD) method and pseudo-spectral time domain (PSTD) method is developed. By using this approach, energy deposition of biology tis- sue illuminated by electromagnetic flelds can be accurately simulated. Meanwhile, acoustic properties of the tissue can be e-ciently simu- lated as well. Based on this approach, a MITAT model is created and some simulated results are analyzed. Furthermore, some real breast tissues are adopted to perform the thermo-acoustic imaging experi- ment. Comparisons between experimental and simulated results are made. The feasibility and efiectiveness of the proposed approach are demonstrated by both numerical simulations and experimental results.