Simply Time Domain Reflectometry system for food analysis

Abstract

Effectiveness of a simple Time Domain Reflectometry instrumental chain was tested by using different sodium chloride concentration.The layout is quite simple and economic, the software user friendly and the measurements rapid.An innovative approach for the statistical analysis of these kind of signals was implemented, accounting for multivariate analysis of the waveform, replacing the traditional mathematical theory.Good results in terms of coefficient of determination for sodium chloride estimation were obtained with R2 0.942 (RMSE 0.18 g/100ml) for simple linear regression and R2 0.983 (RMSE 0.10 g/100ml) for PLS analysis.The results obtained show how a cheap, rapid, and easy to use instrumental chain can be very promising for determinations of foodstuff parameters.