A wide input power range rectenna for energy harvesting and wireless power transfer applications

Abstract

This article describes a novel rectifying-antenna design with extended input power range operating at 2.4 GHz for both ambient wireless energy harvesting and wireless power transmission (WPT) systems. The rectenna consists of a 2 × 2 fractal antenna array and a rectifier circuit with a high-power conversion efficiency (PCE) in a wide input power range. This circuit contains two conversion stages based on two different Schottky diodes, and a third stage that dissipates the unconverted input power, which can disturb the harvesting process. These three stages are controlled by a power management block based on circulators, that direct the input power to the adequate stage according to its power range. A prototype of the proposed harvesting system is fabricated and experimentally validated. The measurement results confirm the wide input power range behavior of the designed rectenna with a relatively constant and high PCE (between 58% and 67%) for a power density ranging from 4 to 252 μW/cm2. The proposed solution can be successfully used for both ambient energy harvesting and WPT systems.