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.

We propose a low-cost, easy-to-fabricate, contactless microwave sensor for dielectric characterization of liquids. The design of the proposed sensor is based on a multiple complementary split-ring resonator (MCSRR) fabricated on a low-cost FR-4 substrate. A glass capillary tube having an inner diameter of 0.008λ0 is inserted in the high electric field region of the MCSRR to carry the liquid under test. The sensor is designed to operate at a resonant frequency of 2.45GHz for an empty tube and shifted resonant peaks are utilized for the dielectric characterization of different liquids. The maximum observed shifts in resonant frequency and Q factor are up to 400MHz and 31, respectively. The numerically established relations are experimentally verified through fabricated sensor for various binary mixtures of water and ethanol. The percentage errors between the calculated and reference permittivity of different samples are noticed to be less than 5%. The proposed device promises to be a cost-effective and convenient solution for accurate dielectric characterization of liquids and their binary aqueous solutions.