An efficient algorithm to calculate relative permittivity from multi-layered stripline based measurements at microwave frequencies

Abstract

In recent years, multi-layer stripline or microstrip line based dielectric measurement has drawn the attention of many researchers. These methods are particularly attractive as they can readily be used for the dielectric measurement of non-metal clad material. Measurement setups developed using the multi-layer approach have the added advantage that they need very little sample preparation. However, the extraction of dielectric properties in these experimental setups is complex due to the multi-layer nature of the problem. At present, this is usually done using brute-force approaches, which take long computational times and large memory. This paper presents an efficient technique based on the Newton Raphson algorithm to address this. The algorithm developed is coded in Matlab and the results show a significant improvement over the brute-force method.