Equivalent circuit of a planar microwave liquid sensor based on metamaterial complementary split ring resonator

In the present work, a study of a metamaterial complementary split ring resonator (CSRR) microwave planar sensor for dielectric liquid characterization is carried out using HFSS software. The design consists in a CSRR-loaded two ports rectangular patch microstrip-fed grounded planar structure. The investigated liquid sample is put in a capillary glass tube lying parallel to the surface of the sensor. The liquid test tube is deposited horizontally parallel to the surface of the planar sensor. The advantage of the design lies on the fact that it allows different orientations and multiple size possibilities of the test tube. This makes it possible to explore different resonant frequencies in the 2.1 GHz frequency band. Moreover, an optimization study is carried out to achieve a high sensitivity and a high-quality factor of the proposed sensor. To better understand the operation and to further verify the feasibility of the equivalent circuit, a parallel RLC resonant circuit is used to obtain the desired Z parameter responses Z₁₁, Z₂₂, Z₂₁. A T-shaped electrical model of the proposed sensing structure is established using Advanced Design System (ADS) software. This latter constitutes one of the principal novelties of this work, which has never been addressed so far.