Low-Terahertz Channel Performance in Falling Wheat for Moisture Sensing
Abstract
Terahertz (THz) waves are highly sensitive to water and therefore offer a promising noncontact approach to wheat moisture sensing, but existing THz studies have been limited to static samples. This article investigates moisture sensing based on the performance of a THz channel in falling wheat, as encountered at grain intake. The channel power loss is measured at six frequencies from 120 to 320 GHz for three moisture contents and interpreted with a physics-based model that couples the double-Debye permittivity of water, Landau-Lifshitz-Looyenga mixing, and Lorenz-Mie extinction. The model reproduces the measured loss. Above the extinction maximum, the dielectric moisture response peaks where the wavelength approaches the kernel diameter, and that a two-frequency loss ratio removes the loading dependence. A channel-level analysis of QPSK and 16-QAM links shows that a 1 dB moisture-induced loss change alters the bit error rate (BER) by a factor of 3 to 30. THz communication channels at grain intake could therefore sense moisture as a byproduct of data transmission.
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BibTeX
@misc{li2026lowterahertz,
title = {{Low-Terahertz Channel Performance in Falling Wheat for Moisture Sensing}},
author = {Xiaoxiang Li and Hanchen Liu and Kefeng Huang and Jiabiao Zhao and Mingxia Zhang and Jie Yang and Yuheng Song and Wenbo Liu and Peian Li and Chunhua Zhu and Jianjun Ma},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = nov,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2611.04615},
eprint = {2611.04615},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2611.04615},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Low-Terahertz Channel Performance in Falling Wheat for Moisture Sensing
AU - Xiaoxiang Li
AU - Hanchen Liu
AU - Kefeng Huang
AU - Jiabiao Zhao
AU - Mingxia Zhang
AU - Jie Yang
AU - Yuheng Song
AU - Wenbo Liu
AU - Peian Li
AU - Chunhua Zhu
AU - Jianjun Ma
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/11/03
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2611.04615
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2611.04615
AB - Terahertz (THz) waves are highly sensitive to water and therefore offer a promising noncontact approach to wheat moisture sensing, but existing THz studies have been limited to static samples. This article investigates moisture sensing based on the performance of a THz channel in falling wheat, as encountered at grain intake. The channel power loss is measured at six frequencies from 120 to 320 GHz for three moisture contents and interpreted with a physics-based model that couples the double-Debye permittivity of water, Landau-Lifshitz-Looyenga mixing, and Lorenz-Mie extinction. The model reproduces the measured loss. Above the extinction maximum, the dielectric moisture response peaks where the wavelength approaches the kernel diameter, and that a two-frequency loss ratio removes the loading dependence. A channel-level analysis of QPSK and 16-QAM links shows that a 1 dB moisture-induced loss change alters the bit error rate (BER) by a factor of 3 to 30. THz communication channels at grain intake could therefore sense moisture as a byproduct of data transmission.
ER -