RF Power Harvester Using a Broadband Monopole Antenna and a Quad-Band Rectifier

An RF energy harvester (rectenna) consists of a broadband monopole antenna and a quad-band rectifying circuit is designed to harvest EM wave energy in the frequency range of 1.412 GHz to 8.56 GHz, which covers GSM-1800, LTE-band, Wimax, Wi-Fi, and WLAN. The initial component of the rectenna is an antenna that includes a semi-circular radiating patch with 8 circular stubs and a semicircle ground plane. The simulation results show the antenna has −10 dB impedance bandwidth at 7.148 GHz (from 1.412 GHz to 8.56 GHz). The second part of the rectenna is a rectifier circuit with a quad-band matching network for RF to DC conversion. The rectifier benefits from a two-stage Dickson rectifier using Schottky diodes. The RF-DC conversion efficiency and output DC voltage are simulated, and the maximum output voltage of the rectifier with the optimum load resistance of R=12 kΩ is 7.2 V, and the peak conversion efficiency is 65.3% when the input power to the rectifier is -4 dBm at 1.71 GHz.