Practical Microwave Meter for Sensing Moisture and Density of Granular Materials

Author

Trabelsi, Samir ; Nelson, Stuart O. ; Lewis, Micah

Author_Institution

U. S. Dept. of Agric., Richard B. Russell Agric. Res. Center, Athens, GA

fYear

2008

fDate

12-15 May 2008

Firstpage

1021

Lastpage

1025

Abstract

A low-cost microwave sensor for rapid and nondestructive sensing of bulk density and moisture content in granular and particulate materials has been built and tested. The sensor was made with inexpensive, off-the-shelf components and operates at 5.8 GHz. Three permittivity-based algorithms were used to determine simultaneously bulk density and moisture content from dielectric properties measurement. Results obtained for wheat indicate the bulk density can be determined with less than 2% relative error and that moisture content can be determined with a standard error of calibration of 0.5%.

Keywords

agricultural products; calibration; density measurement; error analysis; granular materials; microwave detectors; moisture measurement; nondestructive testing; permittivity measurement; bulk granular material density determination; calibration; dielectric properties measurement; frequency 5.8 GHz; low-cost microwave sensor; moisture content sensing technique; nondestructive sensing method; off-the-shelf components; particulate materials; permittivity-based algorithms; practical microwave meter; relative errors; standard errors; wheat; Calibration; Construction industry; Density measurement; Electric variables measurement; Frequency measurement; Microwave measurements; Microwave sensors; Microwave technology; Moisture measurement; Optical polarization; Low-cost microwave sensor; bulk density; dielectric constant; loss factor; moisture content; wheat;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Instrumentation and Measurement Technology Conference Proceedings, 2008. IMTC 2008. IEEE

Conference_Location

Victoria, BC

ISSN

1091-5281

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-1540-3

Electronic_ISBN

1091-5281

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IMTC.2008.4547187

Filename

4547187