Planar Edged UWB Antenna for Water Quality Measurement

A compact planar edge ultra-wideband (UWB) antenna is designed to operate at a frequency range of 3.5 GHz to 10.4 GHz for water quality detection. The design was constructed on an FR4 substrate with an overall dimension of 30 * 35 * 1.6 [mm.sup.3]. The presented design is used to detect the presence of salt in the water in terms of reflection coefficient ([S.sub.11]). The proposed antenna's performance was examined by increasing the salinity of the three water samples: distilled water, reverse osmosis (RO), and raw water. The results showed the decrease of the [S.sub.11] with the increment of salt in the water samples. In addition, the antenna showed good sensitivity as the resonance frequency of the antenna slightly shifted to a lower frequency as the dielectric constant of water increased. Hence, the proposed UWB antenna can be prominently suitable for monitoring water quality and sensors.