Real-time imaging system for monitoring and control of thermal therapy treatments

A system of monitoring in real-time a thermal therapy, the system comprising:

• an imaging cavity including a plurality of antennas arranged in a three-dimensional array around the imaging cavity;
• and
• a controller operatively connected to the imaging cavity, the controller configured to:
• collect, with an electronic processor, a plurality of pairwise measurements from the plurality of antennas to determine a plurality of S-parameters,
• apply in real-time a combination of direct-path triggering signals and magnitude thresholding, along with real-time median filtering and per-channel magnitude and phase calibration within each discrete measurement group, to determine a series of discrete S-parameter measurements from a continuous data stream,
• determine an incident electric field inside the imaging cavity for each of the plurality of antennas,
• generate a numerical function directly linking an unknown material property of an object of interest to a measured voltage when the object of interest is positioned within the imaging cavity,
• update a material property of the object of interest,
• determine a total electric field inside the imaging cavity based on the updated material property, and
• output an estimated map of complex permittivity for the object of interest based on the total electric field.

A method of monitoring in real-time a thermal therapy, the method comprising:

• determining, with an electronic processor, a propagation constant for a plurality of waveports;
• modeling an object within an imaging cavity using a sparse mesh model;
• determining a simulated impedance of the object based on the model of the object;
• calibrating the simulated impedance with a theoretical impedance numerically calculated for the object;
• determining a distribution of an electric field and a distribution of a magnetic field for a mode in a conformal modeled waveport based on the calibrated impedance and the model of the object;
• and
• exciting the plurality of waveports to generate the determined distribution of the electric field and the distribution of the magnetic field.