Numerical modeling and high-speed parallel computing: New perspectives on tomographic microwave imaging for brain stroke detection and monitoring

This article deals with microwave tomography for brain stroke imaging using state-of-the-art numerical modeling and massively parallel computing. Iterative microwave tomographic imaging requires the solution of an inverse problem based on a minimization algorithm (e.g., gradient based) with successive solutions of a direct problem such as the accurate modeling of a whole-microwave measurement system. Moreover, a sufficiently high number of unknowns is required to accurately represent the solution. As the system will be used for detecting a brain stroke (ischemic or hemorrhagic) as well as for monitoring during the treatment, the running times for the reconstructions should be reasonable. The method used is based on high-order finite elements, parallel preconditioners from the domain decomposition method and domain-specific language with the opensource FreeFEM-solver.