Thursday, January 11, 2007 - 3:30 PM

Microwave Moisture Sensing of Wet Bales

Mathew Pelletier, USDA-ARS, Rt.3 Box 215, Lubbock, TX 79403

Sensing of moisture in very wet lint bales is unique due to the fact that moisture distribution is typically non-uniform and can in some instances be highly localized. This issue is even further complicated by the use of a sensor that reads only a portion of the bale and/or with a sensor that provides an output based on an average moisture content reading rather than worst case wettest spot measurement. In short, in these wet bales, these sensors can be miss-leading and in a feed back control loop will lead directly to the production of large quantities of bales that have excessive levels of added moisture, if left unattended and unchecked. The research presented in this paper examines a novel method that is being developed to provide a complete moisture profile of the lint bale through a new tomographic microwave imaging technique.

Poster (.ppt format, 6199.0 kb)
Recorded presentation