Advancements in broadband electromagnetic sensing for food quality control

The problem of quality control is of one the most relevant issues in food industry, because it impacts both consumers safety and manufacturers reliability. While current technologies have reduced this issue, accidents still occur, especially due to the difficulty of detecting low-density contaminants. To cope with this problem, electromagnetic sensing techniques can provide a viable solution, thanks to the non-negligible electric contrast existing when low-density materials are immersed in food items. In this respect, the authors of this contribution have proposed the synergic use of terahertz and microwaves frequencies, in order to both exploit the high spatial resolution of THz images and the capability of inspecting items in-depth using microwaves. In this paper, the ongoing work concerned with THz time-continuous monitoring, experimental demonstration of a low-complexity microwave imaging algorithm, as well as with the use of machine-learning techniques to process microwave data will be described.