Effects of the variation of the dielectric constant for a periodic, width-modulated microstrip line based sensor

Real-time monitoring and quantification of any physical, chemical, and/or mechanical variations within a given environment may be useful for different science and engineering systems. For instance, these type of sensors can monitor variations in temperature, gas-concentration [1], oil contamination [2], etc., and should be low cost, compact and lightweight. One methodology for such devices can be the monitoring of the sensors' electric response due to a particular stimulus from the environment under watch. In addition, these sensors should allow the observation and quantization of even small variations from a nominal value, especially in critical applications, including those related to security. © 2010 IEEE.