Measurement of Relative Permittivity in Controlled Soils using Three Electromagnetic Sensors : HYMENET, TDR and Resonant Cavity

Abstract:

A standard procedure to evaluate electromagnetic sensors has been proposed by \citet{blonquist2005standardizing}. This method relies on non-dispersive liquids with well-known dielectric properties. Liquids are preferred over solids or porous media to avoid air gap and heterogeneity in generally. The present work aims to compare two sensors (TDR and HYMENET) in porous media with controlled properties instead of liquids. The measurement of relative permittivity is made with an experimental protocol with four different soils. For sand type given and fixed conductivity (1, 10, 100 mS m$^{-1}$), five water contents are performed. Therefore, in total sixty different sample are prepared (hence 4$\times$3$\times$5 = 60). The measurements are compared with each other using Resonant Cavity as a reference. The results show low scattering of measurement ( under 10%) depending on the sensor used (volume of soil scanned, operating frequency, etc).