Development of monopole sensors for rice quality characterization in Malaysia

This thesis presents an innovation within the established research of monopole sensors for the determination of the characteristics of rice in Malaysia. The characteristics are usually determined based on numerical method, simulation and experimental measurement. Measurements used to describe the grades and classify types of rice available in the market are based on moisture content and composition of broken rice. To characterize the quality of rice, various types of sensors have been used. In this research, two types of sensors : monopole sensor and coupled monopole sensor on a ground plane were developed. These sensors operate within the frequency range of 1 GHz to 5 GHz for moisture content characteristics and 10 GHz to 14 GHz for broken rice composition characteristics. These two types of sensors were used to measure ten different types of rice prepared using a standard oven method with moisture contents of between 14% to 18%. Besides that, five samples of different compositions of broken rice ranging between 0 to100% were also measured. To compare the two types of monopole sensors, the reflection coefficient of each sensor was measured at the feed point of the sensors by a Vector Network Analyzer (VNA) and analyzed using MATLAB software. The coupled monopole sensor showed a higher sensitivity of moisture content in the rice grain at 3 GHz with a value of 0.16 (%-1) in comparison to the monopole moisture content with a lower value of 0.07 (%-1). In addition, the coupled monopole sensor for the composition of broken rice in the samples at 12 GHz with a value of 0.00066 (%-1) was also more sensitive than the monopole sensor which had a lower value of 0.00037 (%-1). The findings have proven that the coupled monopole sensor is more sensitive than the monopole sensor.

[1]  Samir Trabelsi,et al.  Microwave nondestructive sensing of moisture content in shelled peanuts independent of bulk density and with temperature compensation , 2008, 2008 IEEE Sensors Applications Symposium.

[2]  O. P. Gandhi,et al.  MONOPOLE ANTENNAS , 2003 .

[3]  A.S. Meier,et al.  Measured Impedance of Vertical Antennas over Finite Ground Planes , 1949, Proceedings of the IRE.

[4]  R. Collin.  Antennas and Radiowave Propagation , 1985 .

[5]  Yiyu Yao,et al.  Granular Computing , 2008 .

[6]  Sang Ha Noh,et al.  Measurement of grain moisture content using microwave attenuation at 10.5 GHz and moisture density , 2002, IEEE Trans. Instrum. Meas..

[7]  Self and mutual impedances of monopoles on a circular disk , 2007, 2007 IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society International Symposium.

[8]  A. Kraszewski,et al.  MOISTURE CONTENT DETERMINATION IN SINGLE CORN KERNELS BY MICROWAVE RESONATOR TECHNIQUES , 1991 .

[9]  Majid Tayarani,et al.  Prediction of the input impedance of two coupled monopole antennas using fuzzy modeling , 2006, 2006 IEEE International Conference on Granular Computing.

[10]  Liquid Dielectric Property Determination using Monopole Probes Operating at Microwave Frequencies , 2006, 2006 IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Technology Conference Proceedings.

[11]  B. D. Popovi.  Thin monopole antenna: finite-size belt-generator representation of coaxial-line excitation , 1973 .

[13]  Kok Yeow You,et al.  Improved Formulation for Admittance of Thin and Short Monopole Driving From Coaxial Line Into Dissipative Media , 2009, IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters.

[14]  Zulkifly Abbas,et al.  Analytical and Numerical Analysis of Fringing Field at Aperture Open-Ended Waveguides , 2008, 2008 Second Asia International Conference on Modelling & Simulation (AMS).

[15]  B.S. Yarman,et al.  Design of ultra-wideband antenna matching networks , 2007, 2007 IEEE Applied Electromagnetics Conference (AEMC).

[16]  Xavier Chavanne,et al.  New in situ techniques for the estimation of the dielectric properties and moisture content of soils , 2009 .

[17]  R. King,et al.  On two arbitrarily located identical parallel antennas , 1968 .

[18]  Andrew Y. J. Lee,et al.  Dielectric Characterisation of High Loss and Low Loss Materials at 2450 MHz , 2006 .

[19]  M. F. Iskander,et al.  A new in situ procedure for measuring the dielectric properties of low permittivity materials , 1986, IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement.

[20]  A. Green.  MEASUREMENTS OF THE DIELECTRIC PROPERTIES OF CHEDDAR CHEESE , 1997 .

[21]  Peng Wan,et al.  A Detection Method of Rice Process Quality Based on the Color and BP Neural Network , 2010, CCTA.

[22]  Kaida Khalid,et al.  The analysis and design of multi-layer microstrip moisture sensor for rice grain , 2010 .

[23]  K. Thakur.  MODELLING THE DIELECTRIC CONSTANT OF RICE GRAINS , 1999 .

[24]  Stuart O. Nelson,et al.  Measurement of microwave dielectric properties of particulate materials , 1994 .

[25]  E. E. Altshuler.  Self- and mutual impedances of traveling-wave linear antennas , 1989 .

[26]  Masamitsu Honda.  Indirect ESD measurement using a short monopole antenna , 1990, IEEE International Symposium on Electromagnetic Compatibility.

[27]  Stuart O. Nelson,et al.  Free-space measurement of dielectric properties of cereal grain and oilseed at microwave frequencies , 2003 .

[28]  Liu Guangrong.  Detection of Chalk Degree of Rice Based on Image Processing , 2011, 2011 International Conference on Intelligence Science and Information Engineering.

[29]  Mohd Fareq Abd Malek,et al.  Modeling of Coaxial Slot Waveguides Using Analytical and Numerical Approaches: Revisited , 2012 .

[30]  F. Žáček,et al.  Microwave measurements of complex permittivity by free space methods and their applications , 1986 .

[31]  Impedance of a monopole on the base of a large cone , 1969 .

[32]  Mahesh P. Abegaonkar,et al.  A microwave microstrip ring resonator as a moisture sensor for biomaterials: application to wheat grains , 1999 .

[33]  Jiri Polivka.  An Overview of Microwave Sensor Technology , 2007 .

[34]  Keigo Iizuka,et al.  A method of determining electrical properties of geophysical media , 1984 .

[35]  A. Denoth,et al.  The monopole-antenna: a practical snow and soil wetness sensor , 1997, IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote. Sens..

[36]  Eugene A. Aronson,et al.  Theory of coupled monopoles , 1970 .

[37]  L. Shafai,et al.  Beam focusing properties of circular monopole array antenna on a finite ground plane , 2005, IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation.

[38]  R. Vaughan,et al.  Diversity gain from a single-port adaptive antenna using switched parasitic elements illustrated with a wire and monopole prototype , 1999 .