Head phantoms for a microwave imaging system dedicated to cerebrovascular disease monitoring

This paper presents advances in the realization of a head phantom dedicated to the test of a microwave imaging system in order to assess its performances in a realistic laboratory controlled configuration before a possible clinical application to brain stroke monitoring. The phantom is based upon a rigid 3D-printed structure that delineates several cavities which can be filled up with different biological tissue mimicking liquid mixtures. The phantom structure and the composition of the tissue mimicking mixtures are detailed and, then, some effects of the differences in dielectric properties between the phantom and a real head on the electric field distribution within the phantom are analyzed through numerical simulations.