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Wireless Power Transfer in the Radiative Near-Field

Article  in  IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters · January 2016

DOI: 10.1109/LAWP.2016.2542138

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This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/LAWP.2016.2542138, IEEE
Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters

Wireless Power Transfer in the Radiative Near-

Field
Vinay R. Gowda, Student Member, IEEE, Okan Yurduseven, Member, IEEE, Guy Lipworth, Tomislav
Zupan, Matthew S. Reynolds, Senior Member, IEEE, and David R. Smith, Member, IEEE

 For distances beyond the reactive near-field, magneto-

Abstract— A scheme for wireless power transfer (WPT) in the inductive coupling becomes insignificant. Long-range WPT
radiative near-field (Fresnel) region is presented. The proposed applications with microwave or laser sources [5, 6] can be
Fresnel WPT scheme is designed to focus microwaves to a applied in the far-field region, which begins at a distance of
diffraction-limited region where a detector can be positioned, 𝑧 = 2𝐷 2 /𝜆0 from the transmitting (Tx) antenna [7], where D
achieving reasonably high power transfer efficiency over
is the largest aperture dimension, 𝜆0 is the free space
moderate distances. The configuration consists of transmit and
receive microstrip patch array antennas, with the receiving wavelength, and the aperture lies in the 𝑥𝑦-plane. However,
antenna connected to a power-harvesting half-wave rectifier achievable power transfer efficiencies in the far-field region
(rectenna). Fresnel region operation enables the fields radiated are often unacceptably low. Moreover, the footprint of the
by the transmitting aperture to be localized both in range and receiving (Rx) aperture must increase with distance to
cross-range. Using Fresnel region focusing, we achieve an intercept the power diverging from the Tx aperture.
increase of 66.8% in the amount of received power when Near-field schemes can still be considered if the target to be
compared to the performance of a conventional beam-forming powered lies within the radiating near-field of the source,
array. We also demonstrate the efficiency improvement by where quasi-optical approaches can be used. In this
powering an LED using the on-axis and off-axis focusing
intermediate Fresnel zone, which begins at a distance 𝑧 =
configurations.
0.62√𝐷3 /𝜆0 [7], a focal point, F(x, y, z), can be defined by
Index Terms—Wireless power transfer, Fresnel, near-field, optimizing the phase distribution across the Tx aperture [8-
focusing. 10]. This enables control of the field radiated by an aperture
not only in the cross-range, xy-plane, but also in range, z-axis.
I. INTRODUCTION The field intensity from the source can thus be localized,
Wireless power transfer (WPT) schemes have been increasing the amount of power received by the Tx aperture
proposed that leverage both the near-field and far-field placed at the focal point.
(Fraunhofer) zones. The near-field zone is divided into the In this paper, we consider focusing in the radiating near-
reactive and radiating (Fresnel) near-field. Most WPT field to enhance WPT efficiency. Our configuration consists of
schemes demonstrated in the literature have been designed for planar Tx and Rx microstrip patch array antennas, with the Tx
the reactive near-field [1-3] and far-field [4-6] zones, where antenna producing a focused beam and the Rx antenna placed
complete systems have been demonstrated. In the reactive at the focal point. Using the Rx aperture and a half-wave
near-field zone, power is transferred between resonant circuits rectifier (HWR) circuit we form a rectenna structure that
via magneto-inductive coupling. Systems operating in this converts the RF signal to DC. The output of the Rx antenna is
zone can have high WPT transfer efficiencies, but their alternatively connected to a microwave power meter to
usability is restricted to small separation distances 𝑑 between measure and compare the power received with and without
source and target, since the efficiency of magneto-inductive focusing.
systems falls as 1/𝑑 6 [3]. In addition, the strong coupling can
introduce a resonance frequency shift that varies strongly as II. TRANSMITTING FRESNEL REGION ANTENNA DESIGN
distance between the resonant circuits [1], necessitating some
Analyzing the characteristics of the fields produced by an
method of either changing the operating frequency or
antenna aperture within each of the surrounding field regions
dynamically re-tuning the resonators to maintain optimal
efficiency. plays an important role in visualizing the concept of Fresnel
focusing. A depiction of a square aperture focusing a beam in
the Fresnel region is demonstrated in Fig. 1. As shown in Fig.
Manuscript received December 12, 2015; revised February 6, 2016;
accepted March 12, 2016. 1, the reactive near-field region of the aperture is dominated
V. R. Gowda, O. Yurduseven, G. Lipworth, and D. R. Smith are with the by evanescent waves, rapidly decaying as a function of
Center of Metamaterials and Integrated Plasmonics, Department of Electrical distance. Within the Fresnel region, the radiated fields can be
and Computer Engineering, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA
([email protected]; [email protected]). confined to a desired focal point by optimizing the phase
Matthew S. Reynolds is with Department of Electrical Engineering, distribution of the aperture. Once the far-field limit is reached,
University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, 98195, USA. the fields start forming a diverging beam.
Tomislav Zupan is with Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing,
University of Zagreb, Unska, 3, 10000, Zagreb, Croatia.

1536-1225 (c) 2015 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/LAWP.2016.2542138, IEEE
Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters

individual patch elements within the Tx antenna array shown

in Fig. 2(a). The length of the microstrip transmission lines
feeding the patches are adjusted accordingly to achieve
focusing at Fon. When an antenna is designed conventionally,
its parameters, such as antenna gain, half-power beam width
(HPBW) and radiation efficiency, are defined in the far-field
region. Although this work demonstrates Fresnel zone
operation, it is still important to analyze these parameters to
assess the performance of the Tx array. Full-wave simulations
of the Tx antenna were performed in CST Microwave Studio.
It was observed that the antenna has a gain of 23.1 dBi with a
Fig. 1. Depiction of fields produced by a square aperture radiation efficiency of 86% and a HPBW of 7°.
(D=20 cm) within the surrounding field regions. Focusing can Since the proposed WPT system operates in the Fresnel
be achieved in the Fresnel zone. region, it is important to calculate the spot size or focus width
for the focused fields produced by the Tx aperture. This is an
Our Fresnel region WPT implementation makes use of two important parameter for the design of the Rx antenna which
planar microstrip patch arrays, illustrated in Fig. 2, with an will be discussed in the next section. From CST simulations,
8x8 array and a 4x4 array serving as Tx and Rx antennas, the -3 dB points (full width at half-maximum, FWHM) of the
respectively. Both antennas were designed using low-loss electric field produced by the Tx antenna at the focal plane is
1.524 mm thick Rogers 4003 substrate (εr=3.55 and found to be 13.5 cm, providing a good estimate on the size of
tanδ=0.0027). Investigating Fig. 2, it can be seen that different the Rx antenna needed to maximize transfer efficiency. The
from the Rx antenna composed of edge-fed patches, the Tx simulated and measured 1-D electric field plots to calculate
antenna consists of inset-fed patches to better accommodate the FWHM points are shown in Fig. 3. For measurement, we
the varying length microstrip transmission lines. We designed used a planar near-field scanning system (NSI 200 V – 3 x 3).
the antennas to resonate at 5.8 GHz, a widely used industrial,
scientific, and medical (ISM) band. From standard diffraction
theory it is possible to obtain an estimate for the achievable
focal spot size radius (SS) based on the antenna geometry,
focal length, and wavelength of operation as given in (1) [8].

Fig. 3. 1-D plot of the simulated (dotted) and measured (solid)

normalized electric field magnitude plots at the focal plane.

III. RECEIVING ANTENNA AND RECTIFIER DESIGN

(a) (b)
An important aspect of the Rx design procedure is the
Fig. 2. Patch array antennas (a) 8x8 Tx array (b) 4x4 Rx array
optimization of the effective aperture size to maximally
(DTX=21.7 cm, DRX=16 cm).
capture the power emitted from the Tx aperture. Ideally, the
aperture size of the receiving antenna should be on the order
0.8868 F 0
SS  (1) of the FWHM width of the focused electric field produced by
D the Tx antenna. From the calculations of spot size in the
earlier section, the receiving antenna was designed with
Here, |𝐹| is the on-axis focal length along the optical axis, dimensions slightly larger to intercept the fields outside the -3
z. Each of the patch elements must be tuned to radiate with a dB region, reducing the spillover loss. We implement the Rx
phase such that the collective interference pattern results in the antenna using the 4x4 patch array illustrated in Fig. 2(b). The
desired focal spot. Computing the phase difference (or time Rx antenna utilizes identical patches and element spacing as
delay) for each of the radiating elements using the geometric the Tx antenna, having the same resonance frequency of 5.8
length approach [8-10], one can achieve constructive field GHz. The Rx antenna also has uniform amplitude and phase
interference at a certain focal point, F(x, y, z), in the Fresnel distribution across the aperture, radiating in the broadside
region. To perform this design, we choose an arbitrary focal direction. As mentioned earlier for the Tx array, although the
point along the optical axis (on-axis), Fon = (0 cm, 0 cm, 40 proposed WPT scheme works in the Fresnel zone, full-wave
cm) and calculate the required phase distribution for the far-field simulations of the Rx antenna were performed to

1536-1225 (c) 2015 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/LAWP.2016.2542138, IEEE
Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters

analyze its radiation characteristics, providing a gain of 17.7 simulation and measurement can be attributed to over-etching
dBi with a radiation efficiency of 88% and a HPBW of 20.7°. of the printed circuit board (PCB) during the fabrication
An important component of a WPT system is the rectifier process. Fig. 5 also shows the S11 of the fabricated HWR
used for harvesting power. Once the transmitted RF signal is (under 13 dBm input power), which is below -10 dB at 5.8
received by the Rx antenna, it must be converted to a DC load GHz, confirming the accuracy of the matching circuit.
connected to the output terminal of the antenna. The
combination of the rectifier with the antenna array is often
termed a rectenna. We used Keysight ADS software to design
a HWR circuit relying on the Schottky barrier diode HSMS
8202. We chose this diode due to its small threshold voltage
and high rectifying efficiency in the 5.8 GHz band [4]. A
schematic circuit diagram of the HWR is shown in Fig. 4(a),
and a microstrip implementation of the proposed HWR circuit
is depicted in Fig. 4(b).

Fig. 5. Simulated (dashed) and measured (solid) |S11| (dB)

patterns for Tx and Rx antennas, and HWR.

In a near-zone WPT scenario, the receiver may be

positioned off of the optical axis of the Tx aperture. Therefore,
(a) (b) it becomes necessary to demonstrate both on- and off-axis
Fig. 4. HWR (a) schematic (b) microstrip implementation. field focusing for WPT applications. We designed and
fabricated two separate Tx apertures to achieve both on-axis
We performed a parametric study of the HWR circuit, and off-axis focusing (using the geometric length approach
varying the values of circuit elements in ADS. The study discussed earlier). The on- and off-axis focal points were
results indicated the optimum discharge time was achieved chosen to be (in units of cm) Fon = (0, 0, 40) and Foff = (8, -8,
with C1=10 pF and RL=1 kΩ. The impedance seen at the input 40), respectively, and the focal plane field patterns are plotted
of the Rx antenna is Zin≈50 Ω while the input impedance of in Fig. 6. In comparison to the on-axis configuration,
the diode is Zin=2-j40 Ω (under 13 dBm input power). To providing a gain of 23.1 dBi and a radiation efficiency of 86%,
maximize the power delivered to the load, we incorporated the off-axis configuration has a gain of 20.1 dBi and a
into the rectifier board an impedance matching circuit as radiation efficiency of 83%.
shown in Fig. 4(a). Fig. 4(b) depicts a microstrip
implementation of the HWR. Starting from the RF connector,
it consists of an open-stub used for impedance matching
between the diode and the Rx microstrip patch antenna array.
The shorted stub within the matching network provides a DC
path to the ground. The diode is connected to the end of the
main transmission line, followed by an RC load. Not shown in
the figure is the LED connected to the output terminal of the
HWR (replacing RL), serving as a DC load.

IV. EXPERIMENT AND RESULTS

To fabricate the Tx and Rx patch arrays, as well as the (a) (b)
HWR microstrip circuit, we patterned the desired structures Fig. 6. Simulated, normalized electric field patterns of the Tx
into the top copper layer of a double-sided copper-clad Roger antenna at the focal plane (a) on-axis focus at Fon = (0 cm, 0
4003 substrate using a U3 LPKF laser milling system. The cm, 40 cm) (b) off-axis focus at Foff = (8 cm, -8 cm, 40 cm).
radiation efficiencies of the Tx and Rx array antennas were The fields are plotted in a transparent fashion to show the Tx
also measured using the NSI near-field scanning system [11], antenna in the background.
and reported to be 85% and 87% respectively, providing good
We compared the WPT efficiency of our focusing array
agreement with the simulation results. The reflection
with that of an unfocused array. For the latter, we fabricated a
coefficients (S11) of the Tx and Rx antennas are shown in Fig.
second 8x8 array, equal in size and element-spacing to our
5. From Fig. 5, we observe the simulated and measured S11
focusing Tx array, but with a uniform phase distribution
patterns are in good agreement. The slight shift between
across all patches. This array provides a gain of 26.3 dBi and

1536-1225 (c) 2015 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/LAWP.2016.2542138, IEEE
Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters

emulates a beam-forming aperture that would typically be configuration, third, using the off-axis focusing configuration,
used to create a beam in the far-field zone. It should be noted and finally, using the traditional beam-forming structure. The
here that the advantage of being able to control the radiated measured threshold power values are shown in Table II. As
fields in range (and therefore achieving a focus at F) comes shown in Table II, the on-axis focusing configuration requires
from the Fresnel zone operation. In the far-field, however, 65.1% less power (40.2 mW) to light the LED in comparison
both antennas would work as beam-forming antennas with the to the traditional beam-forming configuration (66.3 mW).
ability to perform beam steering but not focusing. Similarly, the required transmitted threshold power level for
The complete experimental setup is shown in Fig. 7(a). Our the off-axis focusing configuration is 19.7% smaller compared
RF source is realized using a vector network analyzer (VNA) with the beam-forming configuration.
outputting Pout=20 mW (13 dBm). We used an RF amplifier to
TABLE II
increase the power fed to the Tx antenna, PTx, to 100 mW (20 MEASURED TRANSMITTED THRESHOLD POWER VALUES FOR LED LIGHTING
dBm). We then positioned the Rx array at the focus point, Direct On-Axis Off-Axis Beam-Forming
connected it to a microwave power meter, and recorded the 7.32 mW 40.2 mW 55.4 mW 66.3 mW
received power, PRx. This procedure was repeated three times:
once for the on-axis Tx array, again for the off-axis Tx array,
and finally using the conventional on-axis beam-forming V. CONCLUSION
array. The calculated WPT efficiencies, 𝜂 = 𝑃𝑅𝑥 /𝑃𝑇𝑥 , are We have demonstrated a WPT scheme operating in the
reported in Table I for all three cases. Fresnel zone capable of focusing the radiated fields at a
desired focal point. We have achieved an increase by a factor
of up to 66.8% in the received power level as a result of
Fresnel focusing. Although 5.8 GHz ISM band has been
chosen for this work, the proposed Fresnel WPT scheme can
readily be extended to higher frequencies in order to increase
the power transfer range, achieve size reduction of the
antennas and obtain smaller focus regions. When used with
dynamically reconfigurable apertures and some form of target
tracking or serving, the proposed Fresnel WPT scheme could
(a) (b) offer significant advantages in that targets to be powered could
Fig. 7. Fresnel zone WPT system (a) experimental set-up for be in motion and power transfer can be achieved in a dynamic
manner.
received power measurement (b) powering an LED using the
off-axis configuration at z=40 cm.
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