Research Units

The consortium of the MiBraScan project is constituted by three research units: Politecnico di Torino (POLITO) , Institute for Electromagnetic Sensing of the Environment (CNR-IREA), and CentraleSupélec (SUPELEC).

Politecnico di Torino (POLITO)

The POLITO unit is constituted by two research groups with specific and complementary expertise. One group is part of the Antenna and EMC Lab (LACE) and has extensive experience in EM modeling, in antenna design, breadboarding and characterization, and in the environmental measurements of EM field. The other one is the Very-Large Scale Integration (VLSI) group with expertise in modeling and design of integrated circuits (digital, mixed-signal and RF), including UWB for breast cancer detection, prototyping on FPGA, on-chip massively parallel processing and hardware acceleration. The LACE group includes Prof. Francesca Vipiana, MiBraScan project PI, Eng. Gianluca Dassano, and Dr. Jorge Tobón with expertise in EM modelling, EM environmental measurements, and antenna design and prototyping. The VLSI group includes Prof. Mario Casu, Dr. Marco Vacca and Dr. Giovanna Turvani, with expertise in digital as well as mixed-signal integrated circuits and in the design of complex systems on FPGA.

In the MiBraScan project, the role of POLITO consists in designing and prototyping all the hardware parts of the microwave imaging (MWI) system and in assessing the EM 3D full-wave modeling tool to be used in the system level simulations and to be combined with the MWI algorithms, developed by CNR-IREA for qualitative tissue mapping. For the system level simulations POLITO will generate numerical phantoms starting from imaging segmentation performed by CNR-IREA. In the prototyping of the MWI system, POLITO is involved in the design and prototyping of the antenna system and in the assembling of the circuits for the antenna front-end and back-end and A/D conversion. Moreover, POLITO has the responsibility of the ad-hoc hardware acceleration with FPGA of the MWI algorithms, developed by CNR-IREA for post-acute monitoring, in order to achieve real-time data processing. Finally POLITO will lead the experimental validation.

Institute for Electromagnetic Sensing of the Environment (CNR-IREA)

The CNR-IREA unit is constituted by Dr. Lorenzo Crocco, unit’s PI, Dr. Rosa Scapaticci and Gennaro G. Bellizzi, experts in EM inverse scattering techniques, with an extensive expertise in the application of MWI methodologies to real-world scenarios. Moreover there are two associate researchers: Dr. Gennaro Bellizzi, expert in biomedical applications of EM waves and accurate microwave measurements, and Dr. Enrico Tedeschi, neuroradiology researcher at the Neuroradiology Unit of the Department of Advanced Biomedical Sciences of Federico II University of Naples.

The expertise of the CNR-IREA unit in the design of optimal devices for MWI medical applications is the starting point of the MiBraScan system and will be exploited in the first months of the project to refine the system topology before moving to the modeling and realization stages. In the MiBraScan project the CNR-IREA unit will develop the MWI algorithms for both post-acute monitoring and quantitative imaging of brain tissues, and will lead their validation on simulated data. These activities will be supported by a temporary researcher specifically hired for the project. Thanks to the neuroradiological collaboration, the CNR-IREA unit will bring to the project the specific expertise needed to properly select CT and MRI scans of actual stroke cases in different evolution stages and a useful medical involvement during the phantoms trial stage. CNR-IREA will perform the image segmentation for the generation of numerical phantom (POLITO) and physical phantom (SUPELEC). Finally, the building and characterization of the coupling liquid will be carried out at CNR-IREA lab.

CentraleSupélec (SUPELEC)

The SUPELEC unit has a long experience in the study of radiation, propagation and scattering of EM waves from the quasi-static regime to microwaves. Its research fields concern the modeling of complex configurations from a theoretical, numerical as well as experimental level. The unit is constituted by two research groups with complementary expertise that are involved in medical applications of MWI and specifically for breast cancer detection. Their expertise concerns the development of inverse scattering algorithms and their application to experimental data collected in controlled configurations as well as the realization of 3D-printed realistic anthropomorphic breast phantoms and the study of liquid mixtures that mimic the dielectric properties of the breast tissues. One group is part of the Laboratoire de Génie Electrique et Electronique de Paris (GeePs); it includes Nadine Joachimowicz and Olivier Meyer, both assistant professors at the universities Paris-Diderot and Pierre et Marie Curie, respectively, and Christophe Conessa who is a project engineer at CNRS (the French National Center for Scientific Research). The other group includes Bernard Duchêne who is a researcher at CNRS and member of the Laboratoire des Signaux et Systèmes (L2S).

In the MiBraScan project, the SUPELEC unit will design and realize 3D anthropomorphic head phantoms based upon CT/MRI image segmentations provided by CNR-IREA. These phantoms will mimic the evolution of a stroke and will be used to validate the MiBraScan prototype.