Novel monkey‐wrench‐shaped microstrip patch sensor for food evaluation and analysis

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Microwave sensor technology is considered to be a non-destructive and hygienic means for food evaluation and analysis. The rapid progress in microwave sensor technologies motivated us to present a novel monkey-wrench-shaped microstrip patch sensor for evaluating food quality. The proposed antenna is considered as a liquid sensor to detect adulteration in liquids by examining the relationship between concentration, shift in resonant frequency, and variation in reflection coefficient. RESULTS:The sensor has a compact size of 17 × 14 mm 2 imprinted on an FR4 substrate of thickness 1.57 mm. This microwave system is proposed for monitoring overall milk quality using a microstrip sensor and has considerably good numerical sensitivity and accuracy (13.11% and 88.5% respectively), which makes the system attractive for detecting adulteration. Further, the Q-factor for the proposed sensor is 209 and has a standard deviation less than the difference between non-adulterated and adulterated values, giving resolution high enough to distinguish adulteration with an acceptable statistical accuracy. In this study, different milk categories (buffalo, goat, and cow milk) are considered as liquid samples to detect adulteration by demonstrating the variation in reflection coefficient due to change in dielectric properties for the following different cases: (i) adulteration of milk with water; (ii) adulteration of milk with synthetic milk powder; (iii) adulteration of milk with caustic soda; and (iv) adulteration of milk with vegetable oil. The referred variation in reflection coefficient and resonant frequency is due to a change in the dielectric properties of a liquid when a varying concentration of an adulterant/solute is added to the liquid sample.CONCLUSION: The simulation and measured results show good agreement that validates the proposed sensor for food adulteration detection with high sensitivity. In terms of performance, the proposed sensor shows accuracy with high spatial resolution and reduced penetration depth to detect the adulteration in various milk samples (i.e. buffalo, goat, and cow milk).

Low-cost microstrip sensor based on coupled step line (CSL) resonator for blood plasma glucose determination

“…Today, sensors play an essential role in people's daily lives, and the design of sensors at high-frequency ranges is the attention of designers, like optical sensors in millimeter wave frequencies (terahertz range) [1][2][3][4], and RFID sensors for the IoT healthcare system [5][6][7]. In oil, gas, and petrochemicals [8,9], cosmetics [10,11], and food production [12][13][14][15][16], an accurate microwave sensor is needed to yield a high-quality product. Microstrip sensor structures are suitable for microwave frequencies due to their high sensitivity and accuracy.…”

Graphene based T‐shaped monopole antenna sensor for food quality evaluation

“…Among different microwave characterization techniques, resonant methods are normally viewed as the most consistent and precise. These strategies include testing at a single frequency or some discrete resonant frequencies 17,18 . The devices that are used for characterization are known as sensors because their ability to detect changes in the material properties is based on variations in sensor responses such as shifts in the resonant frequency and the reflection coefficient due to changes in the dielectric permittivity of the MUT 19‐22 …”

“…These strategies include testing at a single frequency or some discrete resonant frequencies. 17,18 The devices that are used for characterization are known as sensors because their ability to detect changes in the material properties is based on variations in sensor responses such as shifts in the resonant frequency and the reflection coefficient due to changes in the dielectric permittivity of the MUT. [19][20][21][22] This study makes a novel contribution to the literature in this field by reporting the design of a system for detecting adulteration in liquid food samples that can become an attractive tool for industrial purposes.…”

Exploration of adulteration in common raw spices using antenna-based sensor

“…The devices engaged for the characterization purpose of the materials are referred as sensors, as they have the ability to sense the change in material properties on the bases of variation in sensor response such as resonant frequency, reflection coefficient, quality factor, etc. [19]. There are a number of resonant sensors that are available in the literature; the planar technology is more attractive in the current scenario because of its compact size, low cost, and less performance time with easy data interpretation [20].…”