Automotive · Frontier
RF Dipstick — Tanker Fill Level & Slosh State
Reads a tanker's fill level from outside the tank — no holes drilled.
Plausible physics, early work — shown honestly as an experiment.
How it works
The surface of a liquid is a strong boundary the signal reflects from, and its height shapes the echoes inside the tank. As the level drops, those echoes shift. Sloshing rocks the surface at its own slow rhythm, clearly different from road vibration.
In the physics: Liquids with eps_r 20-80 versus air eps_r 1 make the fill surface a dominant dielectric boundary: fill height sets the reflection geometry and path delays of tank-interior multipath, while sloshing modulates those paths at the fluid's resonant frequency (0.5-2Hz), distinct from road vibration.
See it work
This is real pipeline output for Automotive, replayed. The exact reading depends on your room.
Go deeper
How the field becomes an answer
How we prove it
Own-hardware: 200L drum and IBC tote, sweep fill 0-100% in 5% steps with ESP32 pair, verify monotonic delay/NeRF response; then live tanker trailer with certified dip readings as ground truth.
Who it is for
Retrofit tank telemetry with zero tank penetration and no intrinsic-safety certification burden — sold to bulk-liquid fleet managers and rail tank-car lessors.
The matching solution
Complete first-room estimateCabin Presence Node1 nodes · ~$40 parts · 45 min Request kit, subscribe, or set up →Compatible DIY hardware options
45 min · intermediate