Novel RF energy harvesting using Rectenna

In this paper an experimental RF energy harvester using rectifying antenna (rectenna) to harvest ambient energy from cellular device operating at 900 MHz GSM band is proposed. The circuit is a combination of antenna and rectifying circuit using Schottky barrier diode for microwave (RF) to DC conversion. The performance results of the rectenna shows radiation efficiency of around 58.81%, gain of 3.9 dB and directivity of 5.972 dBi. The proposed rectenna design can prove to be a low cost device for wireless power transmission and RF energy harvesting. The prototype is fabricated with simulated and measured results in good agreement, having a return loss of 21 dB at frequency of around 885 MHz. The overall efficiency is enhanced by using ISS351-TB-E Schottky diode which is categorized by a low junction capacitance and a low threshold voltage to achieve higher conversion efficiency.

Radiofrequency Energy Harvesting for Wireless Sensor Node: Design Guidelines and Current Circuits Performance

Given their omnipresence, electromagnetic energy offers the most attractive and recent energy supply solutions for low consumption power devices. The most targeted application is the wireless Sensor (WS) node, which is indispensable in all computing systems. This work proposes the design guideline for harvesting radiofrequency (RF) energy using the Rectifying Antenna circuit known as rectenna. The rectenna design issues are then developed to introduce new solutions for optimizing the performance of the circuits. Note that the end-to-end efficiency analysis must incorporate both receiving antenna characteristics, rectifying diode parameters, and matching filter components. However, in most studies, only one or at most two of these aspects are treated. We then want to overcome this lack by offering a global view highlighting all the design issues for optimal RF/DC conversion efficiency. The specific case of rectennas based on patch antennas and Schottky diodes, easily integrated into the circuit boards, is considered. The results of this chapter show that although the harvestable energy levels of ambient RF waves are low, some recent designs offer solutions to take advantage of these ambient waves.

Butterfly design mesh antenna of optical rectenna for S-band communication systems

A novel optical rectenna design is presented in this paper to operate in S-band communication. We propose a new method of combining antennas and solar cells to collect and transmit optical and radio frequency signals respectively. In this work, we determined the electrical power collected, it can be used for the polarization of a diode or a low-noise amplifier in a receiver block thus simulation results provides a gain of 6.74 dBi at 2.9 GHz with an effective return loss of -33.62 dB and radiated power of 7.08 mW. These good results make it possible to use the antenna particularly in point-to-point communication systems. A three topologies of rectifying circuits are proposed in the present work. The parametric study has been shown that the efficiency RF/DC conversion can reach 66% for an input power of 10 dBm and a load resistance of 3 kΩ.