NOTE: The article is not for mass dissemination but just for students and colleagues.

International Journal of Applied Electromagnetics and Mechanics 50 (2016) 353–363 353

DOI 10.3233/JAE-150114
IOS Press

Microwave sensor for non-destructive

dielectric characterization of biological
systems
Muhammad Taha Jilania,∗ , Wong Peng Wena , Muhammad Zaka Ur Rehmana ,
Abid Muhammad Khana and Lee Yen Cheongb
a Department of Electrical & Electronics Engineering, University Technology PETRONAS, Bandar Seri
Iskandar, Perak, Malaysia
b Department of Fundamental Applied Sciences, University Technology PETRONAS, Bandar Seri

Iskandar, Perak, Malaysia

Abstract. This paper presents a microwave sensor for the non-destructive dielectric characterization of biological tissues. The
proposed sensor is based on microstrip ring-resonator, which is utilized for quality evaluation of meat at 1 GHz frequency.
The obtained results from measurement and simulation are in good agreement for the studied meat samples. Using numerical
formulations, dielectric constant of meat samples is extracted and then compared with those acquired by well-established and
commercially available coaxial-probe method. Negligible difference is observed in obtained data, the maximum discrepancy is
about 6% only. Findings of this study provide new possibilities to employ microwave circuits for non-destructive evaluation of
dielectric materials.

Keywords: Dielectric constant, dielectric properties, effective permittivity, microstrip ring resonator, meat quality, dielectric
spectroscopy

1. Introduction

During the past few years, demand for meat products has increased enormously. According to food and
agriculture organization (FAO), in 2014 the worldwide meat production reached at 311.8 million tons,
a 18% increase from previous years [1]. Consequently it emphasizes the industry not only for massive
production but to meet consumer’s quality requirement and health safety standards. For that, industry
needs reliable meat quality information throughout the production process to bring about high quality
products [2]. Various studies have recently been carried out to analyze and characterize the products
using physical methods that are often based on electromagnetic waves. The interaction of these elec-
tromagnetic (EM) waves with the material generally is quantified by their dielectric properties, which
describes the material behavior when subjected to the EM-field [3]. The most important parameter of
any dielectric material is the complex permittivity (ε*) which describes the behavior of material when
an electromagnetic field is applied on it [4]
ε∗ = ε − jε (1)

∗
Corresponding author: Muhammad Taha Jilani, Department of Electrical & Electronics Engineering, University Technology
PETRONAS, Bandar Seri Iskandar, Perak, Malaysia. E-mail: mtaha.jilani@gmail.com.

1383-5416/16/$35.00 
c 2016 – IOS Press and the authors. All rights reserved
354 M.T. Jilani et al. / Microwave sensor for non-destructive dielectric characterization of biological systems
√
where, j = −1, ε is the real part called dielectric constant or dielectric permittivity (ε ) and imaginary
part is a loss factor (ε ). When an electric field is applied to a material, a dielectric constant defines
its ability to store energy and loss-factor defines energy dissipation of a material (lossy behavior) [5].
The losses of the lossy materials, can change the way the EM wave interacts with the material and its
propagation behavior [6]. Thus to cater this, another parameter, loss tangent (tan δ) or dissipation factor,
is usually used which is the ratio between dielectric constant and loss factor
tan δ = ε /ε (2)
Most of the food materials including meat interacts only with electric part of the electromagnetic-field,
whereas the response of a material to an applied electric field, in terms of energy reflection, transmission
and absorption, can be determined by their dielectric properties [4]. Study of these properties offers
the possibility to objectively quantify meat quality, since their behavior has strong relationship to the
materials’ physical properties [2]. Dielectric properties are most preferable for quality assessment of
meat, due to its ability to explore the material, even without requiring any physical contact, and its
practicality for industrial usage.
At higher-frequencies such as, at microwaves, the quality of meat is closely related to the moisture
content. Muscle contains approximately 75% of water of its total mass, whereas, protein is second higher
constituent comprises 20% approximately, fat or lipids are about 5%, carbohydrates around 1% and the
vitamins and minerals are approximately 1% [7]. It is due to fact that, at microwave frequencies dipolar-
relaxation of muscle water is a dominant mechanism, which is often regarded as γ -dispersion. Thus,
the total moisture held within tissues can be evaluated through dielectric properties at microwave fre-
quencies. Similarly from meat quality aspect, the most influential parameter is water holding capacity
(WHC), which describes the moisture retention ability of meat. A good quality meat has higher WHC
than a poor quality one, the meat with lower moisture is usually graded as pale soft exudative (PSE)
meat [8]. This low quality meat is produced during the postmortem time when lower pH level with high
muscle temperature causes protein denaturation, which subsequently lowers the WHC of meat [3]. Con-
sequently, with low water holding capacity, meat loses its water-soluble proteins, flavor and appearance;
which make it unsuitable for both processors and consumers. Other than moisture content some factors,
such as composition of meat, electrical charges of proteins, pH variations and presence of amino acids
might affect the dielectric properties at microwaves [2].
To evaluate the dielectric properties several techniques have been reported but among them, open
ended coaxial-probe has been the most widely used method for broadband material characterization,
particularly for biological systems [8]. The most prominent feature of this technique is the support for
wide frequency-range measurements (500 MHz–110 GHz). It is based on the fact that when the probe
is touched or immersed into the testing material, the properties of reflected EM waves are change due
to the change in permittivity [9]. This method is best suited for isotropic and homogeneous semi-solids
and liquids. Typical experimental setup for an open-ended coaxial-probe is depicted in Fig. 1, a network
analyzer connected to PC is just for illustration purpose, nowadays modern analyzers are equipped with
built-in PC and software capability.
Although, this method has higher accuracy but still it is prone to errors. The main source of error; for
solid material is the air-gap between the sample and probe. Whereas, it is reported that for liquids the air
bubbles produced on a probe tip can introduce errors up to 20% [10]. Moreover, thickness of material
under test should be smooth and large enough (at least semi-infinite for probe) and cable stability during
testing, to avoid measurement errors [5]. Since, irregularities on the sample surface reduce the accuracy,
sample preparation remains a challenging task for this method. In some cases the radiative loss, that
 M.T. Jilani et al. / Microwave sensor for non-destructive dielectric characterization of biological systems 355

Fig. 1. Open-ended coaxial-probe method (probe immersed in liquid).

is associated to the coaxial-probe, can cause large measurement errors [11]. To minimize these errors,
repetitive calibration of a measurement system is required. Also it has limited accuracy for low dielectric
constant and loss values [12].
Among other characterization techniques, the most accurate is the resonant cavity method [13]; the
shift in the resonance frequency and changes in the quality factor are utilized to determine sample di-
electric properties. On the contrary to conventional cavity resonator, a partially filled resonator; such
as microstrip resonator can be used for material characterization [14]. Though, cavity perturbation is
supposed to be the most precise method, but requirement of precise sample preparation can be time
consuming. However, planar circuits are most ideal for permittivity measurements, since precise sample
preparation is not required, even the loading and unloading of sample is easier than cavity method [15].
Unlike cavity resonator, which is well suited to only low-loss materials [4], planar sensors can also be
used for the lossy dielectrics, such as biological materials. Moreover, planar structure has the advantage
of easy integration in microwave circuits [16]. Thus, its integration with signal processing circuit will not
only eliminate the expensive and bulky network analyzer requirement, but can lead to design a compact
hand-held device.
In planar structures the most common is the microstrip line, whereas, microstrip based ring resonator
is considered as resonance method. Thus, it offers higher accuracy than simple planar structures. Ad-
ditionally, it is simple, cost-effective, fast (measurements in few seconds) and provides higher Q-factor
(∼250) than conventional microstrip line [14].
Ring-resonator for characterizing the bio-materials have also been reported [17], however, a limited
literature is found for food materials [18]. Whereas still at this stage, applicability of planar sensors to
food and agricultural materials would be an anticipatory issue [4]. The main objective of this paper is to
analyze the applicability of microstrip ring-resonator as a relatively newer tool for the evaluation of meat
quality. Furthermore, the obtained results are then compared with those acquired from well-established
and commercially available coaxial-probe method.

2. Analysis and design of planar resonator

2.1. Analysis

It is known that the effective permittivity of a planar resonator is strongly dependent on the permittivity
of the region or overlay above the ring surface [4]. Thus, any change in permittivity causes significant
356 M.T. Jilani et al. / Microwave sensor for non-destructive dielectric characterization of biological systems

change in the resonant frequency of a ring. For ring resonator, resonance is produced when a mean
circumference of the ring is equal to an integral of the guided wavelength [19]
2πrm = nλg for n = 1, 2, 3 . . . (3)
where, rm is mean-radius of the annular ring, n is mode number and λg is the guided wavelength. In
microstrip line the in-homogeneity of medium causes dispersion due to which transmission mode is
not pure but its quasi-TEM [20]. Consequently, it gives effective permittivity rather than permittivity.
This effective permittivity in the presence of overlay dielectric material can be described as the ratio
of resonant frequencies with and without material [14]. From Eq. (3) we can calculate the resonant
frequencies for n modes. Since λg is frequency dependent, thus it can be related to the frequency by
λ 1 c
λg = √ =√ (4)
εeff0 εeff0 f0
where εeff0 is an effective dielectric constant, f0 is the resonant frequency and c is free-space light speed.
Considering Eqs (3) and (4) will give
nc
f0 = √ (5)
2πrm εeff0
Alternatively, from Eq. (5) we can easily calculate an effective permittivity by using resonant frequency
f0 , it can be written as
 2
nc
εeff0 = (6)
2πf 0 rm
Once, the effective permittivity of the resonator without a testing material is obtained. Using Eq. (6), the
effective permittivity of the ring resonator with a complete overlay sample (i.e loaded-resonator) can be
determined by [14]
 2
f0
εeff1 = εeff0 (7)
f1
To analyze the characteristics of microstrip line theoretically, there are various techniques and dispersion
models have been reported. Whereas, using quasi-static approach, for multilayer microstrip structure
wave propagation is assumed as pure TEM for calculating electrostatic capacitance. To determine this
capacitance, the most common numerical techniques found in literature are the conformal mapping
approach (CMA) [20] and variational method [21]. For CMA main advantage is the analyzing the effect
of geometrical dimensions of microstrip on electrical parameters along with its low computation time
compared to all other numerical techniques [20]. Therefore, in this study conformal mapping based
analytical formulations have been studied.
To account the fringing field effects for a given microstrip line using CMA, the effective strip width
can be calculated as [20]
  
2h1 w
wef f = w + ln 17.08 + 0.92 (8)
π 2h1
For a wide strip, w/h1 > 1, the filling factor (q1 ) for a substrate layer is given as
 
π
1 ln w
h1 ef f − 1
q1 = 1 − wef f (9)
2 h1
 M.T. Jilani et al. / Microwave sensor for non-destructive dielectric characterization of biological systems 357

Table 1
Microstrip ring resonator design parameters
Parameter Design value
Dielectric constant of substrate (εr ) 2.2
Substrate height (h) 787 μm
Dissipation factor (tan δ) 9.00*10−4
Copper thickness (t) 17.5 μm
Designed frequency (f) 1 GHz
Line width (w) 2.4 mm
Feed line length (l) 35 mm
Coupling gap (g) 650 μm
Characteristic impedance (Zo ) 50 Ω

Fig. 2. Two port microstrip-ring resonator with partially overlaid sample.

Similarly for a superstrate layer, it is given by

⎡
 ⎤
cos vε π  
1 h1 − vε ⎣ weff 2 h1 vε π ⎦
q2 = 1 − q1 − .ln π
 + cos (10)
2 weff h1 π h2 − 1 + vε π 2 h1
h1 2 2 h1

whereas, the quantity factor (vε ) is given as

  
h1 π h1
vε = 2 arctan π weff −1 (11)
π 2 h1 − 2 h2
where, h1 and h2 are the thicknesses of substrate and superstrate respectively, w is a physical width of
metallic strip. The loaded effective permittivity, can be calculated by
(1 − q1 )2
εeff 1 = εr1 q1 + εr2 (12)
(1 − q1 − q2 ) + q2
Once the loaded effective permittivity is obtained, the relative permittivity of the overlay material can
be found by [22]
q2
εr2 = (13)
(1−q1 )2
q1 + q2 − 1 + εeff1 −q1 εr1
358 M.T. Jilani et al. / Microwave sensor for non-destructive dielectric characterization of biological systems

2.2. Design and simulation

The dielectric relaxation of water within the tissue structure is start to dominate from lower-end of
microwave frequency band. Therefore, in this study, a 1 GHz frequency has been selected to design ring-
resonator. A low-loss substrate Roger RT/Duriod 5880 with its dielectric constant of 2.2 and the height
of 787 μm has been used for this purpose. On the basis of selected frequency and substrate material,
strip width and effective permittivity are determined by using LineCalc of Agilent Advanced Design
System. The width is calculated as 2.4 mm for the feed-line and ring-strip, considering the characteristic
impedance of 50 Ω. Once the effective permittivity is obtained, from Eq. (5) the ring radius is calculated
for the given frequency. The calculated outer radius of the ring is then approximated to 34.8 mm and
similarly 32.4 mm for the inner radius. A feed line with a typical length of a 35 mm along-with coupling
gap of 650 μm is used. The total size of the circuit is 141 × 87.5 × 0.787 mm (L × W × H), as sufficient
space is retained at both sides of a ring to strengthen the electric field at ring edges. All design parameters
of microstrip ring resonator are listed in Table 1. A FEM based EM solver Ansys HFSS v.15 is then used
for simulation. Simulation is performed with and without sample over the range of 0–4 GHz, while
corresponding resonant frequency (S12 ) of each measurement has been noted. Layout of ring resonator
with loaded sample is illustrated in Fig. 2.
Where εeff0 and εeff1 are the unloaded and loaded effective dielectric constant, and f0 and f1 are the
the unloaded and loaded resonant frequencies, respectively.

3. Material and methods

3.1. Sample preparation

Breast-fillets of broiler chickens are obtained by a local retailer at 6 h postmortem time. Total 12 chick-
ens of similar age and weight from same species are taken to reduce heterogeneity. After the chickens are
slaughtered in an Islamic way, the carcasses are froze at −4◦ C for 12 h, however before measurements
they are equilibrated at room temperature for 5 hours. Afterwards, lean meat samples are taken from
breast-fillet (pectoralis major and minor), while, a sharp-cutter is used to trim the visible fat and connec-
tive tissues. A total 28 number of samples with approximate size of 35 × 30 × 15 mm are obtained. This
sample size is kept large enough to avoid any size dependent permittivity measurements [23]. Since meat
is a soft and malleable material, thus it is very hard to cut smooth slices in exact dimensions. However,
special care has been taken during sample preparation to minimize the variations within an acceptable
limit. Due to unsuitability for measurements 5 samples are discarded and remaining 23 samples have
been considered for measurement.

3.2. Dielectric measurement

Two different methods are used to determine dielectric properties. Initially, dielectric measurements
are carried out using Agilent 85070E dielectric open-ended coaxial probe attached to Agilent E8363C
vector network analyzer (VNA). Prior to sample measurements, VNA has been calibrated with open,
short and standard liquid (de-ionized water) measurements at 25◦ C, as reported elsewhere [8]. Measure-
ments are taken at 501 data points over the range of 200 MHz to 20 GHz. All samples are placed in a
manner that the electric-field is in the direction of fiber (parallel-to-fiber), since it is more sensitive than
perpendicular orientation [24]. Experimental setup is shown in Fig. 3.
 M.T. Jilani et al. / Microwave sensor for non-destructive dielectric characterization of biological systems 359

Fig. 3. Experimental setup of coaxial-probe method for measuring meat sample.

(a) (b)

Fig. 4. Microstrip-ring resonator (a) prototype (b) measuring meat sample.

Additionally, a proposed ring resonator method has been utilized to determine the properties of meat
samples. Samples from same batch that were used in coaxial-probe method are used with ring-resonator
to reduce any discrepancy in results. Cubic samples are partially-overlaid on coupling region, i.e cov-
ering the ring and feed partially with one coupling-gap (as shown in Fig. 4). For measurement, both
ports of microstrip ring resonator are connected to Agilent E8363C vector network analyzer. Prior to
measurement, VNA is calibrated with open-circuit, short-circuit and load-circuit using Agilent stan-
dard calibration-kit. The VNA is configured to provide S12 parameter for a range of 0–4 GHz with 501
data points. Initially, measurements are taken with unloaded resonator, afterwards the S12 parameter is
obtained for sample-loaded resonator at 25 ± 2◦ C.

4. Results and discussion

Dielectric properties of the chicken breast fillets over the frequency range of 200 MHz to 20 GHz are
measured using commercially available coaxial-probe. Results of both, dielectric constant and dielectric
loss factor as a function of frequency are presented in Figs 5(a) and (b), respectively. It can be observed
360 M.T. Jilani et al. / Microwave sensor for non-destructive dielectric characterization of biological systems

(a) (b)

Fig. 5. Measured results from coaxial-probe method for the dielectric properties of chicken breast fillets over the frequency
range of 200 MHz to 20 GHz. Mean values for: (a) dielectric constant (b) dielectric loss factor.

Fig. 6. Comparison of insertion loss observed from simulation and measurement of unloaded microstrip ring-resonator over the
frequency range of 0–4 GHz.

that the dielectric constant shows continuous decline as the frequency increases. However, the rapid fall
can be observed near the dipolar relaxation of free water molecules. Similar behavior can be observed
also for the dielectric loss factor, which also decreases with frequency, however, there is increase in
loss factor values near the relaxation frequency of free-water molecules. It is due to the presence of ions,
which causes ionic conductivity [3]. In microwave region, the produced γ -dispersion is mainly attributed
by the orientation of water molecules, their spin rotation and transport of charges, which leads to rapid
increase in conductivity of material (known as ionic-conductivity). Thus, this increase of conductivity
affects the loss-factor significantly. The measured results are in this study have similar trend as those
available in literature [8,25]. Thus, values of dielectric constant and loss-factor at 1 GHz frequency are
acquired for further usage.
Comparison of simulation and measurement results of two port microstrip ring-resonator without an
overlay material is presented in Fig. 6. Simulation results obtained from HFSS software are in excellent
 M.T. Jilani et al. / Microwave sensor for non-destructive dielectric characterization of biological systems 361

Fig. 7. Comparison of insertion loss observed from simulation (sim) and measurement (exp) of meat sample loaded microstrip
ring-resonator over the frequency range of 0–4 GHz.

agreement with the measured data. To optimize the results, large coupling gap is used to minimize the
effect of gap-capacitance. Since it is reported that the increase in gap-capacitance results in the deviation
of a resonator’s inherent frequency to lower frequency, which is known as its “pushing effect” [26].
Further, the radius of the ring is also tuned by keeping the outer dimension to 34.8 mm, instead using
this dimension for center of the radial width. As expected, now in unloaded condition, resonator shows
periodic resonances at one GHz intervals over the considered range. In both simulation and measured
results, first resonance produced at 1.02 GHz while second at 2.05 GHz and the last resonance occurred
at 3.07 GHz. Furthermore, the corresponding insertion loss at each resonance is marginally higher; this
is due to the loose coupling between the feed and ring. Limited accuracy in the fabrication process and
in measurement system causes some additional errors.
Once the unloaded resonance frequency is determined, the sample has been overlaid on ring-resonator.
It is reported that the maximum electric field point is the coupling region between the ring and feed, due
to which it will be more sensitive to overlay sample permittivity variations [15]. Thus, the samples are
placed over the coupling to get maximum perturbation. For simulation, meat samples are modeled in
HFSS software with the same dielectric data (values of ε and ε corresponding to 1 GHz frequency)
that acquired from coaxial probe method. This will help to analyze the measured results with higher
accuracy, since, for the both simulation and measurements same meat samples are utilized.
Results from simulation and measurements are presented in Fig. 7 for the sample loaded ring-
resonator. Over the observed frequency range both results shows significant change in resonance fre-
quency with the overlaid meat sample. From simulation results, in the presence of overlay sample the
first resonance is shifted to 760 MHz which is around 24% shift from the resonators unloaded frequency.
Similarly, in measured results the first resonance produced at 782 MHz which is more than 21% shift
from the designed resonance frequency. Whereas, the difference between the simulated and measured re-
sult with loaded sample is about 2.8% only. Although, both simulated and measured results are in good
agreement, however, some discrepancy is observed for loss magnitude (around 15%). This difference
could be due to changes in physical properties of same samples during both measurements. Addition-
ally, since the nature of meat is malleable; cutting of samples with exact dimensions is quite difficult, as
those used in simulation. This can also introduce some errors due density-dependent permittivity. Other
362 M.T. Jilani et al. / Microwave sensor for non-destructive dielectric characterization of biological systems

Table 2
Mean values for the dielectric constant of meat obtained by coaxial probe and ring-resonator methods
Parameter Coaxial probe Simulationa Measured
Extracted dielectric constant (ε ) 57.11 59.28 60.41
a
Simulation results are based on Coaxial-probe data.

possible reasons of this discrepancy are the higher humidity level in surrounding, which can affect the
results significantly [27], and contribution of moisture deposited on sample and ring interface.
Ultimately, dielectric constant of overlaid meat sample can be extracted by Eq. (13), however it is
applicable to complete-overlay arrangement. Whereas, in this study the sample is used in partially-
overlay arrangement and using Eq. (13) yields significant errors. Therefore, a correction factor has been
introduced into existing formulation. For this purpose, simulation is performed for the partially over-
lay samples having thickness in 1–15 mm range, since the effect of thickness is more pronounced in
this range [23]. The corresponding permittivity values are determined and its linear relation to sample
thickness is defined in a curve-fitted expression, which provides the best fit to the obtained data. That
expression describes the correction factor for the exiting formulations and it is given as

CFεr = 11.4102 − 0.190667∗(h2 ) (14)

where, h2 is the height of overlay sample. Therefore, the expression for the dielectric constant for a
partial overlay arrangement is given by

εr2_partial = εr2 ∗CF εr (15)

The above expression is valid for the fresh meat samples within the given thickness and width range.
The mean values (for all 23 samples) of dielectric constant acquired from coaxial probe and the ring-
resonator (of both; simulation and measurements) are tabulated in Table 2. Although, the difference
between measured and simulated values is minimal (1.90%) but comparing to coaxial-probe the maxi-
mum discrepancy is around 6%. The overestimation of dielectric constant could be the result of change
in physical properties.

5. Conclusion

In this paper, a microwave sensor based on microstrip ring-resonator has been presented for dielec-
tric characterization of biological tissues. Initially, dielectric properties of meat samples are obtained
using well-established and commercially available coaxial-probe method. Acquired values of dielectric
constant (ε ) and the loss-factor (ε ) at 1 GHz are then used with proposed ring-resonator for simula-
tion. Meanwhile, same batch of meat samples are measured with fabricated sensor. The microstrip ring
resonator which is designed for 1 GHz frequency shows significant changes in its resonance frequency
while loaded with meat sample, in both simulation and experiment. Simulated and measured results are
in very good agreement with a maximum discrepancy is about 2.8% only. Using numerical formulations
and the effective permittivity obtained from simulation and measurements, the dielectric constant of
meat sample is calculated. Obtained values are then compared with those extracted from coaxial probe
method. Results are in good agreement and the maximum difference is about 6% only.
 M.T. Jilani et al. / Microwave sensor for non-destructive dielectric characterization of biological systems 363

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