STTR Phase I: Point-of-Care Skin Cancer Imaging Device

这个小型企业技术转移计划（STTR）第一阶段项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是开发一种经济实惠的工具，在提供正常、恶性和良性组织之间的大对比的同时，对皮肤进行深度成像。该设备将为皮肤科医生和皮肤科外科医生提供宝贵的帮助，并显著提高当前皮肤癌的检测和管理水平。所提议的系统将集成在一个单一的框架中，从而产生一个紧凑的（手持）和实时成像仪，制造成本低。这将使所提出的技术在成本上与皮肤镜成像相当，促进其广泛使用和应用。该装置还将能够在皮肤病变的毫米波图像中识别肿瘤边缘。这种能力将肿瘤切除手术简化为单层切除过程。建议的成像仪将被皮肤科医生和皮肤科外科医生在活检或肿瘤切除之前使用，促进肿瘤的检测和切除。这个小型企业技术转移计划（STTR）第一阶段项目的重点是首次开发一个完全集成的超宽带毫米波成像系统。这将通过采用合成超宽带成像方法来实现，该方法将几个不相交的相邻成像子带集成在一起，共同形成超宽带成像带宽。每个子带包含仅在该特定子带内工作的发射元件和接收元件。在本研究中，将开发子带相控阵天线的射频前端，并将其与成像系统的收发组件集成在单个芯片上。开发的相控阵将被配置为辐射和收集不同频率子带上的RF频率，同时形成具有单独移相操作的独立波束。因此，可以利用电子波束导向技术对目标区域进行扫描。此外，提出了一种利用组织介电特性统计分布的先验信息进行三维毫米波图像肿瘤边缘识别的新方法。这将导致以较低的计算成本更准确地分割介电性能。与最先进的毫米波成像技术相比，所提议的成像仪的超宽带带宽将导致显着更高的图像分辨率。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Technology Transfer Program (STTR) Phase I project is to develop an affordable tool to image the skin over its depth while offering large contrasts between normal, malignant, and benign tissues. Such a device will be an invaluable assistance to dermatologists and dermatologic surgeons and significantly enhance the current state of skin cancer detection and management. The proposed system will be integrated in a single framework, resulting in a compact (handheld) and real-time imager at a low manufacturing cost. This will make the proposed technology comparable in cost to dermoscopic imaging, facilitating its widespread use and application. The proposed device will also be able to identify tumor margins in the millimeter-wave images of skin lesions. This capability will simplify the tumor removal surgery to a single-layer excision procedure. The proposed imager will be used by dermatologists and dermatologic surgeons prior to biopsy or tumor excision, facilitating the detection and removal of tumors. This Small Business Technology Transfer Program (STTR) Phase I project is focused on developing a fully-integrated ultra-wideband millimeter-wave imaging system for the first time. This will be realized by employing the synthetic ultra-wideband imaging approach, where several disjointed, adjacent imaging sub-bands are integrated to collectively form an ultra-wide imaging bandwidth. Each sub-band contains a transmitting and a receiving element that operate only within that specific sub-band. In this research, the RF front-ends of sub-band phased-array antennas will be developed and integrated with the transceiver components of the imaging system on a single chip. The developed phased arrays will be configured to radiate and collect RF frequencies over different frequency sub-bands, while forming independent beams with separate phase-shifting operations. Therefore, electronic beam-steering can be used for scanning the target region. In addition, a novel method for tumor margin identification in 3-D millimeter-wave images is proposed in which a-priori information about the statistical distribution of the dielectric properties of tissues is employed. This will result in a more accurate segmentation of the dielectric properties at a low computational cost. The ultra-wide bandwidth of the proposed imager will result in significantly higher image resolutions compared to the state-of-the-art millimeter-wave imaging technology.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.