A Novel Cesaro Fractal EBG-based Sensing Platform for Dielectric
Characterization of Liquids
Abstract
This paper presents a compact, cost-effective, and contactless fractal
modified EBG-based microwave sensing platform for dielectric
characterization of liquids by analyzing the variation in the reflection
coefficient of an antenna. The reported design is composed of a
triangular-shaped antenna (0.323λo x
0.323λo) placed over a 3 x 3 array of Cesaro fractal
based EBG plane (0.7λo x 0.7λo)
operating at 2.45 GHz. A significant enhancement of the E-field in the
sensing region has been achieved with the incorporation of Cesaro
fractals in the EBG plane which results in increased sensitivity and
compactness. To validate its performance, absolute solutions of
butan-1-ol, methanol, and water are loaded, and a maximum measured
sensitivity of 0.875% and a maximum quality factor of 90.05 is
achieved. Moreover, a maximum RMS error in retrieved values of
dielectric constant and loss tangent of liquid under test is found to be
1.092% and 0.813%, respectively. Our demonstrated EBG-based sensor has
a compact footprint with good precision, affordability, and ease of
operation in detecting liquids for microwave sensing applications.