A dual-port microstrip rectenna for wireless energy harvest at LTE band

Abstract

To wirelessly harvest RF energy at LTE band, a novel compact and efficient dual-port microstrip rectenna is proposed. An antenna designed with two ports and featured by arrow-shaped, circular and rectangular slots is presented. A broadband rectifier including a voltage doubler rectifying circuit and a novel matching network is developed to convert the RF power captured by the antenna into DC power. For well matching between the antenna and the rectifying circuit, the matching network which consists of double 70-deg fan-shaped stubs, no-uniform transmission line and double 55-deg fan-shaped stubs is designed. The prototypes of the proposed antenna and rectifier are respectively fabricated. The simulation and experimental results show that the antenna is able to harvest energy from different frequencies when fed by separate microstrip feeding line. The distribution of current density along with the radiation pattern in E-plane and H-plane is investigated. Besides, the conversion efficiency and output voltage of the rectifier are studied. To test the performance of the proposed rectenna, an indoor measurement is conducted. The results demonstrate that the RF-to-DC conversion efficiency of the proposed antenna is around 42% and the output voltage is around 0.9 V, indicating its potential application in the RF energy harvest.