Cost-Effective Microstrip Antenna-Based Sensor for Food Quality Evaluation with Improved Sensitivity

Abstract

In food manufacturing industries, food quality and food compositions are the major key parameters at all stages. Food adulteration is characterized as a process or change in the nature of the food which turns the product quality undesirable or unacceptable for consumption. However, to increase profit, food adulteration has become a common practice. Many diseases like diabetes, strokes, kidney failure etc. affect humans due to the consumption of adulterated food. Therefore, food security and safety are perceived as one of the most basic human needs since the population is continuously increasing. The development of food and agricultural industries ensures the continuous access to food materials for human safety. However, from harvesting to storage and marketing of products, the microbial, chemical and physical contaminants affect the quality as well as the safety of food. On the contrary, many profiteers are using illegal means to reduce production costs and accomplish higher benefits that have consistently posed a serious threat to public health. Food handling issue is an imperative concern as shown in the Hazard and Critical Control Point (HACCP) by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Therefore, food industry is frequently searching for more inventive and precise traditions of checking the sanitation and quality of final food products. Long haul examination from several hours to several days and different pre-treatment stages are the main drawbacks of the current methods for surveying food safety for example, cell culture, microbiological methods and chemical methods. These strategies of analyses are very expensive and challenging, and every so often require proficient specialists. Therefore, novel techniques for observing of food quality and security not just reinforce the ability to control the food cycle from farm to table yet in addition, guarantee human health and consumer confidence. The microwave sensing methods have placed them ahead to other peer technologies in several aspects that include their capability to inspect internal properties and non-contaminated state of food materials. Further, a range of inexpensive microwave components are commonly available which offers a great opportunity to develop a customized low-cost microwave sensor. Therefore, the research novelty of the proposed doctoral work is to design and develop microstrip antenna sensors based on microwave technique in terms of speed, affordability and simplified fabrication process to ensure quality of the food materials efficiently. Further, the proposed technology will focus on achieving high quality parameters such as sensitivity, Q-factor, spatial resolution, penetration depth and accuracy. The proposed microstrip antenna based sensors and characterization of proposed sensors for various quality parameters of liquid food materials. The meticulous design process is simulated using time domain solver in three-dimensional Computer Simulation Technology Microwave Studio (CSTMWS) and fabricated on FR4 material for experimental analysis. In the presented work, presence of foreign substances is detected in liquid and solid samples with suggested antenna based sensors at desired frequencies in terms of reflection coefficient and shift in resonant frequency as a function of dielectric permittivity. The experimental results have been performed using Agilent E5071C Vector Network Analyzer (VNA). The concise overview of research work aligns with its objectives is presented below:Objective 1: Design, fabrication and testing of microstrip antenna-based sensor for evaluation of liquid food materials such as Water, Milk and Oil. Objective 1 is accomplished by designing and developing different microstrip antenna based sensors for evaluating the quality of liquid food materials. These proposed antenna based sensors serve the purpose of achieving low cost and miniaturized solution for monitoring the quality of water, milk and oils. Further, the proposed technology is subjected to thorough characterization of various quality parameters to attain high sensitivity, accuracy and Q-factor. Objective 2: Design, fabrication and testing of microstrip antenna-based sensor for evaluation of solid food materials such as Red chilli powder, Black pepper powder and Turmeric powder. Objective 2 is achieved by designing and developing microstrip antenna based sensors for evaluating the quality of solid food materials. This work presents slot-loaded microstrip line-fed antenna based sensor to analyze the presence of adulterant in raw spices namely red chilli powder, black pepper powder and turmeric powder. This study aims to design a compact and cost-effective antenna based sensor to undergo rigorous testing for ensuring real time quality monitoring solid food samples using microstrip antenna technology. The proposed sensor aspires to achieve high level of performance in term accuracy, sensitivity and Q-factor. Objective 3: Characterization of the proposed antenna-based sensors for various quality parameters in solid and liquid food materials. Objective 3 is covered along with objective 1 and 2 as it entails to investigate the characterization of proposed antenna based sensor for various quality parameters of various liquid and solid food materials. The thesis work has been organized into chapters, with each chapter offering a comprehensive presentation of the research conducted to fulfill respective objective.