Affiliations 

  • 1 Center for Telecommunication Research and Innovation (CeTRI), Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka (UTeM), Hang Tuah Jaya, Durian Tunggal, Melaka, Malaysia
  • 2 Faculty of Technology Engineering (FTK), Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka (UTeM), Hang Tuah Jaya, Durian Tunggal, Melaka, Malaysia
  • 3 Department of Engineering Materials, Faculty of Manufacturing Engineering, Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka (UTeM), Hang Tuah Jaya, Durian Tunggal, Melaka, Malaysia
PLoS One, 2017;12(9):e0185122.
PMID: 28934301 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0185122

Abstract

A novel symmetrical split ring resonator (SSRR) based microwave sensor with spurline filters for detecting and characterizing the properties of solid materials has been developed. Due to the weak perturbation in the interaction of material under test (MUT) and planar microwave sensor, spurline filters were embedded to the SSRR microwave sensor which effectively enhanced Q-factor with suppressing the undesired harmonic frequency. The spurline filter structures force the presented sensor to resonate at a fundamental frequency of 2.2 GHz with the capabilities of suppressing rejected harmonic frequency and miniaturization in circuit size. A wide bandwidth rejection is achieved by using double spurlines filters with high Q-factor achievement (up to 652.94) compared to single spurline filter. The new SSRR sensor with spurline filters displayed desired properties such as high sensitivity, accuracy, and performance with a 1.3% typical percentage error in the measurement results. Furthermore, the sensor has been successfully applied for detecting and characterizing solid materials (such as Roger 5880, Roger 4350, and FR4) and evidently demonstrated that it can suppress the harmonic frequency effectively. This novel design with harmonic suppression is useful for various applications such as food industry (meat, fruit, vegetables), biological medicine (derived from proteins and other substances produced by the body), and Therapeutic goods (antiseptics, vitamins, anti-psychotics, and other medicines).

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.