Dielectric spectroscopy measurements for moisture prediction in Vidalia onions Original Research Article

Microwave sensing offers an opportunity to determine nondestructively the amount of moisture in materials by sensing the dielectric properties of the material. Dielectric properties of Vidalia onions grown in southeastern Georgia were measured with an open-ended coaxial-line probe and network analyzer in the range from 200 MHz to 20 GHz. Frequency dependence and moisture dependence of dielectric properties were analyzed for moisture contents between 8% and 91%. Moisture content was linearly correlated with the dielectric constant at higher frequencies for the entire moisture range. A density-independent function that incorporates both the dielectric constant and loss factor was tested across multiple frequencies and moisture ranges. Use of this function enabled prediction of moisture content with high accuracy (R2 = 0.99) up to 40% moisture content.