2016 IEEE Student Conference on Research and Development (SCOReD)

Design of Rectenna for Wireless Energy Harvesting

A. M. Shire1#, N. Abdullah2 and E. Mohd3
Faculty of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
University Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia
86400, Parit Raja, Johor, Malaysia
#
College of Engineering, Faculty of Telecommunication Engineering
University of Hargeisa
Hargeisa, Somaliland
1
shire_288@hotmail.com, 2nsaliza@uthm.edu.my and 3ezri@uthm.edu.my

Abstract—the design of rectenna for wireless energy harvesting is provide enough power to operate electronic circuits is limited
presented in this paper. The rectenna design consists of a microstrip [7]. It is very difficult to collect enough power to operate
patch antenna and a rectifier circuit, in which both of them resonate electronic circuits from the power density lower than –20dBm,
at 2.45 GHz. CST software was used as the simulation tool of the because the efficiency of rectifier diode is very small.
proposed microstrip patch antenna. Then, the designed antenna was In this paper, it presents the design of microstrip patch
fabricated and assembled together, and tested using network
Analyzer. The rectifier consists of two tapered microstrip lines, a
antenna for wireless energy harvesting system. The antenna
Schottky diode, a λ/4 microstrip line, a matching microstrip line, and has resonant frequencies at 2.45 GHz. Similarly a rectifier
an output low pass filter. The circuit is printed on the substrate of circuit is also designed which can operate at the desired
FR4 (ԑr = 4.3 and h = 1.6 mm). The circuit was designed and frequency band.
optimized using Advance Design System (ADS), then fabricated
using micro-strip lines with an FR4 substrate. According to the
received wireless power, the values of output DC voltage and power II. RECTENNA DESIGN
have been measured and the best value of load resistance to harvest The rectenna design contains two main parts such as the
maximum output DC power has been selected through simulation. receiving antenna and the rectifier. The receiving antenna is a
Microstrip patch antenna and was printed on FR4 substrate
Keywords—Rectenna; DC; Rectifier.
with permittivity of ԑr =4.3 and thickness (h) of l.6 mm.
I. INTRODUCTION Microstrip feed line with thickness of 0.035 mm was used to
feed the antenna. The design parameters of the antenna such as
The proposed Rectenna contains a receiving antenna and
the width and length of the patch are based on the operating
RF-to-dc rectifier. The rectifier consists of two tapered
frequency of 2.45 GHz are calculated using equations in [6-7].
microstrip lines, a Schottky diode, a λ/4 microstrip line, a
Hence, the calculated values of width and length of the
matching microstrip line, and an output low pass filter. The
proposed rectangular microstrip patch antenna are 36.3 mm
circuit is etched on the substrate of FR4 (ɛr = 4.3 and h = 1.6
and 27.90 mm respectively.
mm). A load resistor, connected at the output of the rectifier,
The rectifier circuit was designed using Agilent ADS
represents the input impedance of the device to be powered.
2011 simulation software. The rectifier consists of two tapered
Energy harvesting by collecting power from
microstrip lines, a Schottky diode, a λ/4 microstrip line, a
telecommunication system are expected as a new power
matching microstrip line, and an output low pass filter. The
source. For example, the electromagnetic wave energy
circuit is etched on the substrate of FR4 (ԑr = 4.3 and h = 1.6
collecting from the ground wave TV broadcast [1-3], and
mm). The input source of the rectifier was single frequency
cellular base station [3]. In other words, Rectenna device is
voltage source. The circuit also consisted of impedance
proposed in the context of energy harvesting applications in
matching network which was in the form of transmission line
order to achieve low consumption wireless sensors or sensor
by defining the width and length. Moreover, the rectifier
networks [4-5]. The rectenna has important role in wireless
circuit was simulated by Transient Analysis. Then, the layout
energy harvesting because it collect electromagnetic RF power
of the rectifier in the form of transmission line was designed in
from free space and convert it into useful dc power [6-7].
CST MWS. The schematic view of rectifier circuit is shown in
The problem in energy harvesting from electromagnetic
Fig. 1.
wave is low received power density at a reception point due to
its energy spreading by the distance from the source [5]. In
addition, the received power is attenuated drastically under no
line of sight condition. Receiving power depends on transmit
power, then high power base station such as medium
frequency or shortwave radio is a good candidate for the
energy harvesting application. However, the area which can

978-1-5090-2948-8/16/$31.00 ©2016 IEEE


Figure 1: Schematic of single diode rectifying circuit.
III. SIMULATED RESULTS
The proposed Microstrip patch antenna was
simulated in CST Microwave Studio using Time domain
solver. The antenna was optimized and its optimized return
loss at 2.45 GHz is shown in Fig. 2.
Figure 2: Return loss of the antenna.
Fig. 2 shows the simulated return loss results of the
antenna. As it can be seen from Fig. 2, the antenna has an
operating frequency of 2.45 GHz with a simulated return loss
result of -20 dB. Similarly, the simulated unidirectional
radiation pattern of the antenna at 2.45 GHz is shown in Fig.
3. From the simulated radiation pattern, the antenna has gain
of 8.8 dB.
Figure 3: Radiation pattern of the antenna at 2.45 GHz.
On the other hand, the single wave rectifier consists
of two tapered microstrip lines, a Schottky diode, a λ/4
microstrip line, a matching microstrip line, and an output low
pass filter. The circuit is etched on the substrate of FR4
(Dielectric constant = 4.3 and thickness of h = 1.6 mm). The
circuit was designed and optimized using Advance Design
System (ADS).
Fig. 4 shows the simulation results of DC voltage as a
function of input power. It is observed that the DC voltage
increases dramatically when the input power increases. An
optimum output DC voltage of 1.039 V is achieved for a load
resistance of 100 Ω and a Pin of 15. It can be inferred that the
rectifier operates at higher input power due to the voltage
threshold of Schottky diode.
Figure 4: Simulated DC Voltage as a function of input power and RL 100 Ω
Figure 5: Simulated DC Voltage at different load resistance and input power
The performance of the proposed rectifier circuit was analyzed
and optimized by using commercially available software
Advance Design System (ADS). The simulation results of DC
voltage as a function of input power of the proposed rectifier
circuit is shown in Fig. 5. From the DC voltage plot, it can be
observed that the DC voltage increases dramatically when the
input power is increases as well as load resistance. The
conversion efficiency is simulated with respect to the rectifier
circuit load at range of 0 dBm to 30 dBm of the input power as
shown in Fig. 6. The highest conversion efficiency of 59.35%
is reached at 30dBm of input power for the load of 200Ω. The
efficiency increases gradually with the input power.
done to measure the performance of the rectenna circuit. Frist it
is very important to calibrate before the measurement. This is
to avoid errors and to achieve reliable result. Measurements
were performed by placing the proposed rectenna at a distance
of 40 cm away from the horn antenna as shown in Figure 9. For
both cases, the far field conditions should be met for both
antennas. The output voltage is measured from the load
resistant connected to the rectenna by a voltage meter.

Figure 6: Simulated conversion efficiency

IV. FABRICATION AND MEASUREMENT

The designed antenna and the rectifier are fabricated on
substrates of FR-4 which has permittivity of εr =4.3 and
thickness of 1.6 mm. The fabrication process is performed
using photo etching process. The fabricated antenna and the
rectifier are shown in Fig.7 while the whole rectenna is shown
in Fig. 8.
Figure 9: Rectenna measurement set up
To measure the ability of the single diode rectifier to convert
the microwave AC signal into DC, a RF signal generator
connected with horn antenna is used to generate a single
frequency input signal at 2.45 GHz to the rectifier as a function
of input power from -20 dBm to 15 dBm with steps of 5 dBm.
Digital Multimeter is connected at the output in order to
measure the DC output voltage across the load. The
measurement data is recorded in Table I.

Table I: Recorded measured data

Power transmit Output voltage (DC) Conversion of
(dBm) (mV) efficiency (% η)

(a) (b) -20 0.005 0.49

Figure 7: (a) Fabricated patch antenna (b) Fabricated rectifier circuit
-15 0.0091 0.57

-10 0.0198 0.8

-5 0.0461 1.2

0 0.101 2.01

5 0.185 2.13

10 0.301 2.43
Figure 8: Fabricated Rectenna
15 0.47 3.6
The measurement of scattering parameter of the antenna is
carried out using vector network analyzer (VNA). The return
loss of the antenna at 2.45 GHz of the antenna are shown in
Fig. 2. As it can be seen from the figures, both simulation and The measured output DC voltages and overall efficiency are
measurement results have good agreement. The measurement shown in Fig. 10. The measured rectenna efficiency is above
set up of the rectenna is shown in Fig. 9. The testing process is 3.6% and the corresponding output DC voltage is 0.47 mV
over a 200 Ω optimized load resistance. The measured results
show that the output voltage and efficiency increase when the
power receive increases. [1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
[6]
Figure 10: Measured output DC voltage
[7]
V. CONCLUSION
Rectenna design is investigated as wireless energy
harvesting device operating at 2.45 GHz with15 dBm.
Microstrip patch antenna and rectifier circuit are designed. As a
result, the rectenna has a measured efficiency is above 3.6%
and the corresponding output DC voltage is 0.47 mV over a
200 Ω optimized load resistance. The simulated characteristics
of the antenna are analysed as well. The antenna is fabricated
and its measured return loss is also analyzed. Good agreements
between the simulated and measured characteristics are
obtained. The rectenna is also measured by using horn antenna
as transmitter and multimeter.
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