Device, and method of its use, for concurrent real time alerting to accumulation of material upon multiple areas of a surface

A method for detecting accumulation of material on multiple areas of a surface concurrently, comprising:

• disposing on said surface at least one transmission line having a characteristic impedance, a source end, and a distal end having an impedance different from said characteristic impedance,
• wherein said at least one transmission line is electromagnetically isolated from said surface;
• providing at least one electromagnetically conducting ground plane adjacent said at least one transmission line;
• providing at least one FM-CW signal at a power level between 1 mW and 10 W, at a carrier center frequency of between 1 MHz and 40 GHz, at a bandwidth of between 10 and 60% of carrier center frequency, said FM-CW signal swept linearly in carrier frequency at a pre-specified period of between 100 millisec to 10 millisec,
• wherein portions of said FM-CW signal are distinguishable over at least pre-specified time intervals;
• receiving at said source end at least one reflection of said at least one FM-CW signal from at least said distal end;
• and
• extracting at least one quantifiable feature from said at least one reflection;
• wherein at least one value associated with said at least one quantifiable feature may be compared to at least one reference value to at least detect at least one material present in at least a pre-specified amount on said surface.