A Simplified and Portable Capacitance Sensor to Measure Moisture Content of Paddy

The moisture content in agricultural products will affect the quality. Fungi developmenthappens if the moisture content is not optimum. This paper presents a non – destructive, simple,fast and low cost interface circuit to measure the moisture content of paddy grains heated indifferent temperature. The arrangement used is a high precision impedance converter. Ceramiccapacitors of different values were used to check the measuring circuit. Using this circuit,moisture content of representative standard samples was measured and dielectric constant wascalculated. The paper discusses the principle, technique, methodology and experimental set upused and the results obtained.

PDF

___

[1] Chari, V. Kandala., and Jaya, Sundaram., “Nondestructive measurement of moisture content using a parallel plate capacitance sensor for nuts and grain”, IEEE Sensors Journal, 10(7): 1282-1287, (2010). [2] Chari,V. K., and Nelson, S.O., “RF impedance method for estimating moisture content in small samples of in-shell peanuts”, IEEE Transaction on Instrumentation and Measurement, 56(3): 938- 942, (2007). [3] Nelsont, S.O., “Use of electrical properties for grain-moisture measurement”, Journal of Microwave Power, 12(1): 67-72, (1977). [4] Nelson, S.O., “Dielectric properties of agricultural products-measurements and applications”. IEEE transactions on Electrical Insulation, 26(5): 845-869, (1991).
Nelson, S.O., Kraszewski, A.W., Trabelsi, S., and Lawrence, K.C., “Using cereal grain permittivity for sensing moisture content”, IEEE transactions on instrumentation and measurement, 49(3): 470- 475, (2000).
Nelson, S.O., and Trabelsi, S., “Historical development of grain moisture measurement and other food quality sensing through electrical properties”, IEEE Instrumentation & Measurement Magazine, 19(1): 6-23, (2016).
Jishun, Jiang., and HuaJi., “Modeling of moisture test for grain based on neural network and dielectric loss factor”, IEEE Computer Society, Second International Symposium, on Computational Intelligence and Design, 424 - 428, (2009).
Ki-Bok, Kim., Jong –Heon, Kim., Seung, Seok, Lee., and Sang, Ha, Noh., “Measurement of grain moisture content using microwave attenuation at 10.5GHz and moisture density”, IEEE Transaction on Instrumentation and Measurement, 51(1): 72-77, (2002).
Nelson, S.O., and Bartley, P.G., “Measuring frequency-and temperature-dependent permittivities of food materials”, IEEE transactions on instrumentation and measurement, 51(4): 589-592, (2002).
Nelson, S. O., “Agriculture application of dielectric measurements”, IEEE Transaction on Instrumentation and Measurement, 51(4): 688-702, (2005).
R, K. Tripathi., Gupta, M,. and Shukla, J. P., “Capacitance technique for measuring moisture content using dielectric data- an immersion method”, ICDL International conference on conduction and breakdown in dielectric liquids, 440-442, (1996).
Mizukami, Y., Sawai, Y., and Yamaguchi, Y., “Moisture content of tea leaves by electrical impedance and capacitance”, Biosystems Engineering, 93(3): 293-299, (2006).
Tsukada, K., and Kiwa, T., “Magnetic measurement of moisture content of grain”, IEEE Transaction on Magnetics, 43(6): 2683-2685, (2007).
Chari, V. K., “Moisture Determination in Single Peanut Pods By Complex RF Impedance Measurement”, IEEE Transaction on Instrumentation and Measurement, 53(6): 1493–1496, (2004).
Chari, V. K., C. L. Butts., and S. O. Nelson., “Capacitance sensor for non-destructive measurement of moisture content in nuts and grain”, IEEE Transaction on Instrumentation and Measurement, 56(5): 1809–1813, (2007).
Kandala, C.V., and Butts, C. L., “Design and performance of an impedance analyzer for nondestructive moisture content determination of in-shell peanuts”, In Sensors Applications Symposium, SAS 2008, IEEE, 46-50, (2008).
Kandala, C.V., and Puppala, N., “Capacitance sensors for nondestructive moisture determination in grain, nuts and bio-fuel materials”, ICST., U S A., 42-45, (2012).
Kandala, C. V., and Puppala, N., “Parallel plate capacitance sensors for nondestructive moisture content of different types of wheat”, Sensors Application Symposium IEEE Bresua, 1-5, (2012).
Kandala, C.V., Avula, R., Settaluri, V., Reddy, R.S. and Puppala, N., “Sensing the moisture content of dry cherries-A rapid and non-destructive method”, Scientific Research, Food and Nutrition Sciences, 4, 38-42, (2013).
Divya, Nath. K., Sudha, Ramasamy., SaranyaDas, Y.M., Prabhu, Ramanathan., “A review on nondestructive methods for the measurement of moisture contents in food items”, presented in Circuit, Power and Computing Technologies (ICCPCT), 2015 International Conference, IEEE Digital library,1-6, (2015).
Saranya Das,Y.M., Divya, Nath. K., Ramaswamy, S., & Ramanathan, P., “A review on sensor based methods for moisture content determination of agricultural commodities”, International Journal of Applied Engineering Research, 10(2): 1697-1703, (2015).
Divya, Nath. K., Ramanathan, P., "Non-destructive methods for the measurement of moisture contents – a review", Sensor Review, 37(1): 71–77, (2017).