An Instrument to Measure the Characteristics of Single Wheat Grain Kernels

Author

Chua, Hong S. ; Haigh, Arthur D. ; Parkinson, Graham ; Gibson, Andrew A P

Author_Institution

Sch. of Electr. & Electron. Eng., Manchester Univ.

fYear

2006

fDate

10-15 Sept. 2006

Firstpage

1402

Lastpage

1405

Abstract

This paper describes an instrument, based on microwave techniques and a gas displacement method, to measure the wet mass, moisture content, volume and hence the density of single wheat grain kernels. A low-cost microwave source and detector is designed to drive a microwave cavity to determine the wet mass and moisture content of the grain. The microwave cavity is compactly integrated with the volume meter to combine the measurements into a single assembly with one loading cycle. The loading mechanism is separated from two novel gas compression bellows to improve the accuracy and stability of this measurement. All of the results are processed using a microcontroller. The measured wet mass, moisture content, volume and density of the grain are shown on an LCD display

Keywords

crops; density measurement; microwave detectors; microwave measurement; moisture measurement; resonators; volume measurement; LCD display; cylindrical resonator; gas compression bellows; gas displacement method; microcontroller; microwave cavity; microwave detector; microwave source; microwave techniques; moisture content; single wheat grain kernels; volume meter; wet mass; Assembly; Density measurement; Detectors; Displacement measurement; Instruments; Kernel; Microwave measurements; Microwave theory and techniques; Moisture measurement; Volume measurement; Cylindrical resonator; gas displacement; moisture content; volume and density; wet-mass; wheat grain;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Microwave Conference, 2006. 36th European

Conference_Location

Manchester

Print_ISBN

2-9600551-6-0

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/EUMC.2006.281299

Filename

4058097