A Low-Cost and Accurate Microwave Sensor System for Permittivity Characterization

A novel low-cost microwave sensor system is proposed for accurate sensing of the real relative permittivity of materials under test (MUT). The proposed solution eliminates the need for using advanced measurement devices such as the vector network analyzer (VNA) for sensor characterization. The propo...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE sensors journal 2023-01, Vol.23 (2), p.1234-1248
Main Authors: Pourafzal, Alireza, Roi-Taravella, Thomas, Cheffena, Michael, Yayilgan, Sule Yildirim
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Binary mixtures
Estimation
Frequency estimation
Frequency measurement
Frequency shift
Low cost
Measuring instruments
Microwave sensors
Network analysers
Permittivity
Resonance
Resonant frequency
Resonators
Search algorithms
Search methods
Sensor phenomena and characterization
Sensor systems
Sensors
Software radio
software-defined radio (SDR) systems
split-ring resonators
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Summary:A novel low-cost microwave sensor system is proposed for accurate sensing of the real relative permittivity of materials under test (MUT). The proposed solution eliminates the need for using advanced measurement devices such as the vector network analyzer (VNA) for sensor characterization. The proposed sensor system is built on a software-defined radio platform. A suitable two-stage frequency estimation approach was developed for estimating the frequency shift of the resonator sensor associated with the real relative permittivity of the MUT. First, the neighborhood of the resonance frequency is obtained utilizing a low-resolution coarse search, followed by a fine search method to accurately estimate the resonance frequency. For the fine search, we modified the AM frequency estimation algorithm and the Golden-Section search algorithm, GS method to suite the proposed sensor system. The performance of the proposed sensor system is validated through simulations and experiments. To demonstrate the feasibility of the concept, experiments were conducted by implementing the solution on a Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP) transceiver using a resonator sensor for detecting the binary mixture of water and methanol. The results show that the proposed sensor system achieves measurement accuracy comparable to advanced equipment such as the VNA. Thus, the proposed sensor system could be a low-cost alternative for sensor characterization purposes with accuracy comparable to standard equipment.
ISSN:1530-437X
1558-1748
DOI:10.1109/JSEN.2022.3225662