Comparison of cross couple MOS based and Schottky diode based RF energy harvesting circuits using Wilkinson power combiner

Abstract

Abstract This paper presents a new but simple RF energy harvesting circuit with the combination of Wilkinson power combiner and voltage multiplier circuits to enhance the output voltage level. Author has proposed a new Schottky diode-based voltage multiplier circuit which is the combination of existing conventional Greinacher voltage multiplier and Villard voltage multiplier circuits. In this proposed circuit first stage is a Greinacher circuit which provides a comparatively higher voltage and the later stages are followed by Villard Multiplier circuits to avoid the design complexities of multistage Greinacher circuits. A Wilkinson power combiner is connected with proposed circuit to combine RF receiving power from multiple receiving antennas. The insertion of Wilkinson power combiner increases the output voltages significantly for proposed circuits. A Cross couple of MOS-based RF energy harvesting circuit is also proposed and studied in RF energy harvesting applications. The performance of Schottky diode and MOS-based RF energy harvesting circuits has been studied and compared. Experimental performance of diode-based circuits has been carried out. The Experimental efficiency for proposed Schottky diode-based RF energy harvesting circuits is obtained as 58.6%. Insertion of Wilkinson power combiner in the proposed circuit increases output voltage level 84 and 90% for three stages Schottky diode-based circuit and MOS based circuit respectively that is a significant improvement of the proposed circuit. RF energy harvesting has various applications like low-power medical and remote healthcare electronics systems, providing wireless power to IoT devices for smart home automation and monitoring, and directly powering Wireless Sensor Nodes Networks (WSN) from ambient RF energy sources in a remote area.