Contactless and Fine-Grained Liquid Identification Utilizing Sub-6 GHz Signals

The existing RF-based liquid identification systems usually rely on prior knowledge, such as pre-build database or the material and width information of the vessel. Furthermore, existing methods may not work in scenarios where the height of liquid is smaller than that of antenna. In this paper, we proposes LiqRay <tex-math notation="LaTeX">⁺</tex-math> , a contactless system which can identify liquids in a fine-grained level without prior knowledge. To remove the effect of vessel, we build a dual-antenna model and craft a relative frequency response factor, exploring diversity of the permittivity in frequency domain. To eliminate the effect of different height, we devise the electric field distribution model at the receiving antenna, solving the unknown heights via spatio-differential model. Among eight different solvents, LiqRay <tex-math notation="LaTeX">⁺</tex-math> can identify alcohol solutions with a concentration difference of 1% with 92.9% accuracy. Even if the liquid height is about 4 cm, which is fairly lower than that of most antennas’ heights, the accuracy is more than 85%.