DEVELOPMENT OF NON-INVASIVE ULTRA-WIDEBAND ANTENNA ARRAY SENSORS FOR OIL PALM TRUNK HOLLOW DETECTION

The oil palm trees in Southeast Asia face a major challenge of hollows in the trunk caused by a fungus. Among the trustable techniques to detect the hollowness with least effects on the trees and the environment are the tomography techniques. However, the current tomography systems lack image accuracy and data transmission for implementation of wireless network sensor in plantation. One of the emerging methods is microwave imaging (MWI) which depicted nearly cheaper, fast processing, more system mobility, and the least side effects on the environment and the person who conducts the test. The proposed method is using MWI, with novel elliptical ultra-wideband (UWB) antenna, and robust time reversal (RTR) algorithm that offers the completed information about the dielectric properties of the oil palm trunk (OPT) applying for image reconstruction. The novel elliptical patch UWB antenna sensors loaded by stubs, slots, shorting pins, and truncated ground (GND) show complementary results for the imaging of wood.