Beam-Scanning Reflectometer for Detecting Granulated Fruits

The problem of granulation in fruits costs vendors a big chunk of their revenue, hence a non-destructive sensor that can identify granulated fruits without destroying good fruits is highly desirable. This paper presents such a sensor system based on beam-scanning reflectometer operating at 2.45 GHz. Beams of scattered waves from several directions around the fruit are reflected by a conical reflector and scanned by a phased array of pattern reconfigurable Yagi-Uda antennas equipped with 1-b phase shifters for lowest loss in feed network. The collected data are used to calculate the Rician k-factor. The system was tested with plasticine spheres and real tangerines. It was found that the system with an eight-beam array was better than one with a four-beam array. This system may prove useful for quality control of tangerines and other agricultural products.