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VLSI THEORY, DESIGN AND APPLICATIONS (VLSILAB)
Microwave Technology for Brain Imaging and Monitoring
keywords ANTENNA, MEASUREMENT, MODELING, COMPUTATIONAL ELECTROMAGNETICS, ALGORITHMS, ELECTROMAGNETISM, FPGA, MICROELECTRONICS, MICROWAVE DEVICES AND SYSTEMS, MICROWAVE IMAGING
Reference persons MARIO ROBERTO CASU, FRANCESCA VIPIANA
Research Groups Applied Electromagnetics, VLSI THEORY, DESIGN AND APPLICATIONS (VLSILAB)
Thesis type EXPERIMENTAL AND SIMULATIONS, MASTER THESIS
Description Microwave Imaging (MWI) has been used extensively to image dielectric bodies due to the fact that microwave radiation can penetrate into many optically opaque mediums such as living systems. In particular MWI can be used to exploit the differences in dielectric properties of human tissues. The tissues are illuminated with low-power electromagnetic (EM) waves at microwave frequencies, radiated by a set of antennas surrounding the tissues. The resulting scattered EM waves are recorded by the same antennas and processed with suitable algorithms to translate them into an image, which allows to locate targets and/or distinguish tissues (based on their estimated dielectric properties).
In this Thesis the student will be involved in the development and prototyping of microwave imaging systems for brain anomalies detection and monitoring
The main activities will be:
- Electromagnetic (EM) 3-D modeling: antenna design and layout optimization performed by means of an in-house 3D full-wave EM modeling tool; environment to assess the microwave imaging algorithms; “forward” algorithm inside the MWI algorithm for quantitative tissue mapping developed;
- Microwave imaging reconstruction algorithms: implementation and numerical testing of MWI algorithms to monitor the evolution of the affected tissues, and to provide images of the features of these tissues;
- Design, realisation and testing of custom flexible antennas conformal to the human head;
- Design of the back-end processing system for the acceleration of the microwave imaging reconstruction algorithms: a mix of graphics processing unit (GPU), field-programmable gate array (FPGA) and general purpose microprocessors will be assembled and eventually a dedicated application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) for the acceleration of the computational bottlenecks will be designed;
- Design of the radiofrequency (RF) front end electronics, customized for the proposed imaging technique, which consists of a transmitter (TX), a receiver (RX), and a switch matrix to connect TX and RX to the antennas.
During the Thesis the student will work on one (or more) of the previous activities.
Main reference: J. A. Tobon Vasquez, R. Scapaticci, G. Turvani, G. Bellizzi, D. O. Rodriguez-Duarte, N. Joachimowicz, B. Duchêne, E. Tedeschi, M. R. Casu, L. Crocco, F. Vipiana, “A Prototype Microwave System for 3D Brain Stroke Imaging”, SENSORS, Special Issue on Microwave Sensing and Imaging, 2020, 20, 2607 [DOI: 10.3390/s20092607].
Notes Expected duration: 6 months.
Deadline 03/12/2024
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