Effect of moisture content on dielectric properties of banana leaves and peels in frequency range of 1–20 GHz

Abstract The quality of agricultural products can be remotely sensed and enhanced by determining the dielectric properties. This paper studies the dielectric properties of banana leaf and banana peel over the frequency range 1–20 GHz using the open-ended coaxial probe (OCP) method. A new curve fitting model is proposed to characterize the dielectric properties of banana leaf and banana peel. The different moisture content (MC) levels are considered for both banana leaf and banana peel samples and, their dielectric properties are characterized. Further, the banana leaf and banana peel’s measurement data are compared with the data obtained using the proposed model. In addition, Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) and R-squared ( R 2 ) are calculated to validate the performance of the proposed model. In case of banana leaf at 68.26% MC, the dielectric constant achieves the value of R 2 and RMSE of 0.98 and 0.0648, respectively. Similarly, dielectric loss achieves the value of R 2 and RMSE of 0.88 and 0.0795, respectively. Further, for banana peel at 80.89% MC, the dielectric constant achieves the value of R 2 and RMSE of 0.99 and 0.2989, respectively. Similarly, dielectric loss achieves the value of R 2 and RMSE of 0.96 and 0.6132, respectively.