Grant: Canada Research Chairs

Dr. Gilmore's research uses electromagnetic waves to 'see' inside three dimensional objects and detect things that are normally hidden. These waves are in the frequency range from 10 MHz to 4 GHz, and their applications can vary from imaging the moisture content of stored grain in large bins to imaging breast cancer. While the applications are wide ranging, the mathematics and computational processes are identical across domains. The process of illuminating a target with electromagnetic waves, receiving the scattered fields and then making a quantitative image of the target is called Electromagnetic Inversion (EMI). The ability to see inside of objects using these waves provides large social and economic benefits that range from preventing the spoilage of grain to detecting and monitoring the treatment of breast cancer. For example Dr. Gilmore's efforts during his first term were key to the economic growth of a company, 151Research Inc, that commercialized EMI for monitoring stored grain and went from 7 to 47 Full-Time-Equivalent staff during his first term. Continuing to work with a diverse team, Dr. Gilmore’s CRC renewal will build upon the discoveries made during his first term in applied EMI and will focus on three objectives, all working towards practical deployment of EMI systems to help Canada: Objective 1: Increasing the reliability and stability of EMI imaging. Deploying EMI systems in a wide range of industries requires that they perform well across a wide variety of targets and conditions - not just one-off lab systems. Dr. Gilmore's work has shown why EMI systems can be unreliable, and he will use methods such as time-domain EMI that promise to make EMI systems more stable and reliable. Objective 2: Generating practical uses of Machine Learning in EMI imaging. Machine learning shows great promise for increasing the speed and accuracy of EMI, and Dr. Gilmore will develop new machine-learning approaches to EMI focused on their practical application, especially for reliable operation. Objective 3: Creating a clinical-ready prototype contrast-enhanced EMI system for breast cancer detection and treatment monitoring. Objectives 1 and 2 will be combined to create a clinical-ready, world-first, contrast-enhanced breast imaging system that uses a contrast fluid to enhance electromagnetic scattering from cancerous tissues, leading to earlier breast cancer detection and safer breast-cancer treatment monitoring.