Microwave sensor for tangerine classification based on coupled-patch antennas

ABSTRACT

This paper deals with a microwave sensor for classifying tangerines by flavour using coupled-patch antennas. The operating frequency of the antennas is 2.45 GHz. The sensor determines the flavour of each tangerine by measuring the magnitudes of coupled signals of the antennas with the tangerine fruit at the centre. The sorting is carried out using an artificial neural network implemented on a field programmable gate array. The classification performance of the sensor is 95% accurate, so it has potential for use in sorting tangerines by flavour. In addition, the system uncertainty is analysed to determine optimal operating conditions.

KEYWORDS:

• Coupled-patch antennas
• tangerine classification
• microwave sensor
• field programmable gate array (FPGA)
• artificial neural network (ANN)

Acknowledgement

The authors faithfully appreciate Mr. Vichit Lohprapan for kindly proofreading the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Telecommunications Research and Industrial Development Institute, the National Telecommunications Commission Fund [grant number PhD003/2552]; the King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang Research Fund [grant number KREF115061].