A Frequency Synthesizer Based Microwave Permittivity Sensor Using CMRC Structure

In this paper, a high-sensitive microwave dielectric sensor targeted for material permittivity characterization is proposed. A reflective voltage controlled oscillator is devised by virtue of the compact microstrip resonant cell (CMRC) and embedded into a fractional- $N$ phase-locked loop frequency synthesizer. The CMRC structure, covered with material under test, changes its resonating characteristics and, hence, the initial oscillating frequency. Due to the presence of the frequency synthesizer, this frequency shift is finally translated into the controlling voltage variation. In this paper, the material permittivity is extracted by measuring the voltage deviation. Several different samples with known permittivity values are tested to verify the effectiveness of the design sensing platform.

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