The aim of this paper is to present and experimentally verify the first prototype of a microwave imaging system specifically designed\nand realized for the continuous monitoring of patients affected by brain stroke, immediately after its onset and diagnosis. The\ndevice is a 2D version of the 3D system, currently under construction, and consists of an array of 12 printed monopole antennas\nconnected to a two-port vector network analyzer through a switching matrix so that each antenna can act as a transmitter or\nreceiver, thereby allowing the acquisition of the entire multistatic multiview scattering matrix required for the imaging. The\nsystem has been experimentally tested on 2D phantoms with electric properties mimicking the brain. The presence and the\nevolution of the stroke have been reproduced by filling a proper cavity in the phantom with a liquid having the electric\nproperties of blood. A differential approach has been adopted by acquiring the scattering matrix before and after the filling of\nthe blood cavity. The so achieved differential dataset has been processed by means of a linear imaging algorithm in order to\nreconstruct the stroke location and dimension. Moreover, the effect of pre- and postprocessing operations on the measured data\nis investigated. A good agreement has been obtained between the reconstructions and the actual scenario. As a final remark, it is\nworth noting that the entire data acquisition and processing are sufficiently fast to allow a real-time monitoring.
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