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Novel Compact and Broadband Frequency-Selectable Rectennas for A Wide

Input-Power and Load Impedance Range

Article  in  IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation · July 2018

DOI: 10.1109/TAP.2018.2826568

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 Novel Compact and Broadband
Frequency-Selectable Rectennas for A Wide
Input-Power and Load Impedance Range
Chaoyun Song, Member, IEEE, Yi Huang, Senior Member, IEEE, Paul Carter, Jiafeng Zhou, Sumin
Joseph and Gaosheng Li, Member, IEEE

 technology wave of smart home, smart cities and the IoT,

Abstract—Wireless power transfer (WPT) and wireless energy self-sustainable standalone low power electronics devices (e.g.,
harvesting (WEH) using rectennas are becoming an emerging smart sensors and monitors) that automatically collect and
technology. This paper presents a novel design method for a report the data to the server could play an important role [16].
rectenna suitable for a wide range of selectable operating
The WEH would become one of the cutting edge solutions for
frequency band, input power level and load impedance. Most
importantly, it is realized without using complex impedance providing continuous power to low power sensors and
matching networks which shows significant advantages over monitors.
existing rectennas in terms of the structure and cost. A rectenna Much progress on rectennas for WPT and WEH has been
example has been designed, made and tested using this novel made [17]-[27]. Among them, multiband and broadband
method. The proposed rectenna has a compact size of 90 × 90 × rectennas with good/excellent performance (e.g., high
1.58 mm3 and operates at four different frequency bands that are
conversion efficiency and reduced nonlinear effect) have
selectable from 1.1 to 2.7 GHz. Over 60% (up to 85%) energy
conversion efficiency is achieved for the input power from 0 to 15 shown significant advantages over other types of rectennas in
dBm and load impedance between 700 and 4500 Ω. The rectenna terms of the output power level and suitability for different
shows excellent performance for the target applications (WPT operating conditions. However, the optimal design of such
and WEH) with a much-simplified structure and reduced cost. rectennas is still challenging due to the nonlinearity of the
system. So far, there have been very few multiband and
Index Terms—Broadband rectenna, frequency-selectable, broadband rectennas reported with excellent performance [21],
matching network elimination, wireless power transfer, wireless
energy harvesting.
[23]-[27].
Up to now, two widely adopted configurations for multiband
I. INTRODUCTION and broadband rectennas have been reported, as depicted in
Figs. 1(a) and (b). The first configuration is a rectenna using a
W IRELIESS power transfer (WPT) from a source to a load
without the connection of electrical conductors was first
demonstrated by Tesla in the 1890s and has been continuously
single branch multiband or broadband impedance matching
network and a corresponding rectifier [17], [18]. The signals
received by the antenna over the frequency band of interest
investigated by researchers over the past decades [1].
(from f0 to fN) can be delivered to the rectifier through the
Nowadays, the development of WPT is of great significance to
network. The RF power of the signal is then converted to DC
the modern industry, since a range of potential applications
power and delivered to the load. However, there are two major
have been found in such as wireless chargers [2], [3], electric
drawbacks of this configuration:
vehicles (EVs) [4]-[7], wireless communications [8], sensor
1) The loss of the complete matching network is quite high
networks [9], RFID [10], [11], Machine-to-Machine (M2M)
due to the large number of cascaded circuit components. Thus it
[12], and the Internet of Things (IoT) [13]. In addition to the
would be difficult to achieve a high efficiency rectenna
well-studied inductive power transfer system, the radiative
covering different frequency bands using this method;
WPT system and the wireless energy harvesting (WEH) from
2) The higher order harmonic signals generated by the
ambient electromagnetic fields using rectifying-antennas
rectifier cannot be effectively rejected when the bandwidth of
(rectennas) have become an extremely hot research topic in the
the network is larger than 2: 1 (e.g., fN > 2 f0), which may reduce
recent years [14], [15]. Especially with the upcoming new
the overall power conversion efficiency of the rectenna.
To overcome the aforementioned drawbacks, the second type
Manuscript receive October 30, 2017, revised March 05, 2018, accepted
April 08, 2018. This work was supported in part by the EPSRC, U.K., and in of multiband rectenna has been introduced and shown in Fig.
part by the Aeternum LLC (Corresponding author: Yi Huang). 1(b). This rectenna is designed with multi-branch separate
C. Song, Y. Huang, J. Zhou and S. Joseph are with the Department of matching networks and rectifiers, where each branch is
Electrical Engineering and Electronics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69
3GJ, U.K. (e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected];). matched to a particular operating frequency. Meanwhile, the
P. Carter is with Global Wireless Solutions, Inc., Dulles, VA 20166 USA output DC power of the whole circuit is combined at the output
G. Li is with College of Electronic Science and Engineering, National
University of Defense Technology, Changsha 410073, China.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION

(a)

(a) (b)

(b)

(c)
Fig. 2. (a) A typical center-fed microstrip patch antenna. (b) An off-center-fed
(c) patch antenna. (c) The proposed off-center-fed patch with shorting pins.
Fig. 1. (a) Configuration of a conventional rectifying antenna system with a
single-branch impedance matching network. (b) Configuration of a rectifying significantly reduce the performance variation due to the
antenna system with separate circuit branches. (c) The proposed novel nonlinear effect of the rectenna, as discussed in [27]. The
frequency selectable rectenna without the need of impedance matching
proposed rectenna is, therefore, suitable for a wide range of
network.
operating frequencies, input power levels and load impedance.
port [21]-[26]. In this case, the loss of a single matching
To the authors’ knowledge, it is the first time to introduce an
network can be reduced and the operating frequency of the
“adaptive” rectenna with a wide selectable frequency band and
rectenna can be extended by adding additional circuit branches. consistent performance for different operating conditions, but
In this case, the harmonic signals of each single rectifier can without using complex matching circuits.
also be effectively rejected. But, there are still disadvantages The rest of this paper is structured as follows. The detailed
for this configuration. For example, the number of circuit design steps are introduced in Section II and Section III. The
components used for this configuration is normally very large measurement and experimental results are provided in Section
and the structure of the design is quite complex (for a large IV. Finally, conclusions are drawn in Section V.
frequency bandwidth). As a consequence, such rectennas
would have a higher cost due to the complex fabrication II. COMPACT RECTENNA DESIGN WITH SELECTABLE
process and structure. OPERATING FREQUENCY
In addition, the aforementioned conventional rectennas
A. Multiband Matching Network Elimination
normally use antennas matched to standard 50 Ω. The matching
networks should also match the complex high impedance of the The rectifiers are normally of complex high input impedance
rectifiers to 50 Ω as well. In this scenario, the performance of (e.g., real part > 200 Ω and |imaginary part| > 300 Ω) and their
the rectenna would be very sensitive to the impedance variation impedance is very sensitive to the variation of operating
of the nonlinear rectifier [19]. It is difficult to achieve conditions (e.g., frequency, power and load) due to the strong
consistent conversion efficiency in different operating nonlinearity of the rectifying diodes [23], [26]. Therefore, the
conditions due to the impedance variation and mismatch. design of the impedance matching network for broadband or
In this paper, we introduce a novel design method for a multiband rectennas with consistent performance is extremely
wideband frequency selectable rectenna. An important feature challenging. The reported rectenna designs in the literature are
is that the proposed rectenna does not require additional mostly based on the 50 Ω impedance matching system. Their
matching networks, which is very different from the existing matching networks are of complex structures, high cost and
rectennas. The antenna impedance (Zs) is directly (complex high loss. For an integrated rectenna design, if the antenna
conjugate) matched with the rectifier impedance (ZL) at several impedance can be tuned to the desired value, while the
desired frequency bands, as shown in Fig. 1(c). Thus the impedance of the antenna can directly conjugately match with
proposed rectenna is of a relatively simple structure, a compact
that of the rectifier, the matching network of the complete
size and low cost. The frequency bands of interest can be easily
rectenna is therefore eliminated. In this way, the design
tuned by loading a number of shorting pins on the antenna.
procedure is significantly simplified and the proposed rectenna
Moreover, this novel design concept generates a high
impedance complex conjugate matching system that could is of a simple structure and low cost [27], [34]-[35].
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION

Fig. 5. The simulated real part (resistance) and imaginary part (reactance) of the
Fig. 3. The simulated real part (resistance) and imaginary part (reactance) of the proposed antenna with different values of parameter D.
impedance of center-fed patch (CFP) antenna, off-center-fed patch (OCFP)
antenna, and the proposed OCFP with shorting pins. Therefore, according to the design guide, if W = 64 mm, L =
56 mm and G = 90 mm, the fundamental resonant frequency of
the patch antenna at TM100 mode is estimated as 1.84 GHz. The
antenna performance is validated by using software simulations
with the aid of the CST software. As shown in Fig. 3, the
simulated real part (resistance) and imaginary part (reactance)
of the antenna impedance show that a resonant frequency of the
(a) (b) (c) patch is indeed around 1.85 GHz (for resistance = 50 Ω and
Fig. 4. The simulated surface current distributions at 1.85 GHz of (a) the reactance = 0 Ω) which verifies the predictions. Additionally,
center-fed patch (CFP) antenna; (b) the off-center-fed patch (OCFP) antenna;
(c) the proposed OCFP with shorting pins.
the antenna also has anti-resonant performance at about 1.8
GHz, since the resistance is relatively high (e.g., about 200 Ω)
Here, we propose a new method to manipulate the input while the reactance varies rapidly from 150 to -50 Ω at 1.8
impedance of a typical microstrip patch antenna, where the GHz. In our case, the anti-resonant high impedance of the
antenna impedance can be tuned to match with the impedance antenna would be used to directly conjugate match with the
of the rectifier at the desired frequency band (with a ratio < 2: impedance of the rectifier. However, it is well known that a
1), and mismatch at other frequencies (for harmonic rejection). conventional microstrip center-fed-patch (CFP) antenna
Using this method, we could get rid of the complex matching usually has a narrow frequency bandwidth. The ratio of the 2nd
network of the conventional multiband and broadband harmonic frequency/fundamental resonant frequency of the
rectenna, but the rectenna could still achieve competitive CFP is normally larger than 2. Consequently, if such CFPs are
performance for the target applications (WPT and/or WEH). used for rectenna design without a matching network, the
The microstrip patch with a ground plane is one of the most rectenna is only possible for a single narrow operating
common antennas. It has attractive features such as low cost, frequency band.
simple to design and easy to fabricate. As a design example, we To adjust the frequency ratio of the CFP, we introduce a
employ such a patch antenna using Rogers Duroid5880 PCB novel feeding method. As shown in Fig. 2(b), based on the
with a relative permittivity of 2.2 and a thickness of 1.58 mm. geometric center of the patch, the antenna is rotated
As depicted in Fig. 2(a), the copper patch antenna on the top anti-clockwise by 90 – θ degrees. Thus the angle between the
layer has a thickness of 70 m and a size of W × L mm2. The patch and the feed line is θ (θ = 60º in this example). In this
patch is fed by a typical microstrip line. The size of the PCB is case, the antenna is an off-center-fed patch (OCFP). The
G × G mm2. From the theory [28], the radiating edges of the simulated surface current distributions of the CFP and OCFP at
patch determine the resonant frequency of the antenna. their fundamental resonant frequency (1.85 GHz) are compared
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION

Fig. 7. The simulated RF-DC conversion efficiency of the proposed rectenna

with different values of D. The received power by the rectenna is 0 dBm.
Fig. 6. The rectenna design using the proposed OCFP with shorting pins (D =
15 mm). The capacitors C1 = C2 = 100 nF, D1 and D2 are Schottky diodes
HSMS2852, and RL = 2000 Ω.

in Fig. 4. The OCFP shows stronger current flows on both sides

of the radiating edges. In addition, the OCFP has a very strong
current distribution on the edge that is close to the feed line, and
has weaker current flows on other edges (see Fig. 4(b)). Due to
this unbalanced current distribution, multiple resonant
frequencies can be created between the fundamental and
second resonant frequencies of the antenna [27]. From Fig. 3, it
can be seen that the OCFP has realized three anti-resonant
frequencies with relatively high impedance at around 1.5, 1.8
and 2.4 GHz over the frequency range of interest. Compared
with the conventional CFP, the frequency ratio of the antenna is
changed from 1: 2 (1.85 GHz/3.7 GHz) to about 1: 1.2 (1.5
GHz/1.8 GHz) which means more matching frequency points Remove this ground
to large impedance. connection when the
DC guideline is
Next, two pairs of identical shorting pins are symmetrically
connected
loaded on the OCFP with the aim to achieve selectable/flexible
impedance matching for the rectenna design. The shorting pins
are conducting holes which electrically connect the patch to the Fig. 8. The rectenna design for a wide input powers and load impedance range.
ground plane of the PCB. As depicted in Fig. 2(c), each hole The diodes are HSMS2852 for rectifying circuits RC1 and RC2, and are
HSMS2862 for rectifying circuits RC3 and RC4. Note that the ground
has a diameter of 0.8 mm and a distance of D to the center of the
connection at RC2 should be disabled when the DC guideline is connected.
PCB. The value of D in this figure is 15 mm as an example.
Having loaded these shorting pins, from Fig. 4 it can be seen B. Broadband Frequency Selectable Design
that the current has been suppressed to pass through the center In order to achieve a selectable operating frequency band for
area of the patch. The current distributions on the four edges of the proposed rectenna, the positions of the shorting pins can be
the patch are therefore enhanced. Compared with the CFP and tuned. According to the theory in [29], when the distance
OCFP, the proposed OCFP with shorting pins has produced an between the pins and the center of the patch is changed, the
enhanced current flow on the top edge of the patch. Thus, current strength on the edges and center areas of the patch will
additional resonant frequencies might be realized by combing vary. As an example, we have studied the effects on the
the current paths at the top edge and two side edges of the patch. resonant frequency bands of the antenna by changing the value
As shown in Fig. 3, the proposed OCFP with shorting pins has of D. The simulated resistance and reactance of the proposed
created an additional anti-resonant frequency around 2.15 GHz antenna are shown in Fig. 5. It can be seen that the four resonant
with a high impedance value of around 200 + j 150 Ω. and anti-resonant frequency bands of the antenna are selectable
It is shown that, by modifying the conventional CFP to the from 1 to 2.8 GHz when the value of D is changed between 5 to
proposed novel OCFP with shorting pins, the number of 25 mm. Without modifying the physical dimension of the
resonant/anti-resonant frequencies over the desired frequency patch, the electrical size of the antenna is therefore selectable
band (with a frequency ratio < 2) is increased from one (at 1.85 from 0.28 λ0 to 0.78 λ0 by changing the positions of the shorting
GHz) to four (at around 1.45, 1.85, 2.15 and 2.45 GHz) over the pins.
band of interest. Multiband rectennas could therefore be The schematic view of the complete rectenna using the
designed using the proposed antenna without the need for proposed OCFP with shorting pins is shown in Fig. 6. A typical
matching networks.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION

voltage doubler rectifier is selected due to its high conversion

efficiency and simple topology [30]. The capacitors are typical
100 nF chip capacitors from Murata, the rectifying diodes are
Schottky diode HSMS2852 from Avago and a typical 2000 Ω
resistor is used as the load. The rectifier is directly connected to
the antenna port without the introduction of any additional
matching circuit components. The performance of the rectenna
is co-simulated using the ADS and CST software. More
specifically, a frequency domain power source is employed for
the rectifier simulation using ADS, where the port impedance is
directly linked to the antenna impedance exported from the
CST.
Fig. 7 shows an example of simulated RF-DC conversion
efficiency of the complete rectenna with different locations of (a)
the pins (parameter D). The efficiency is calculated using
𝑃
𝜂𝑅𝐹− = (1)
𝑃𝐼
where POUT is the output DC power and PIN is the received RF
power by the antenna. In the simulation, PIN is the input power
of the frequency domain power source.
It can be seen that, when the input power is 1 mW (0 dBm),
the rectenna is of high conversion efficiency (about 60%) at
four different frequency bands. The frequency bands of the
rectenna can be selected from 1.1 to 2.7 GHz by tuning the pin
locations. It demonstrates that the proposed rectenna has
selectable operating frequency over a broad band and also of
high efficiency, the matching network of the rectenna is
removed that would reduce the loss, cost and avoid fabrication (b)
Fig. 9. The simulated RF-DC conversion efficiency vs. (a) input power level
errors (for a complex design). and (b) load resistance of the rectenna at three different frequency bands.

III. WIDE POWER AND LOAD RANGES DESIGN HSMS2852 with a forward bias voltage of 0.35 V and a
Another important feature is that the proposed rectenna is breakdown voltage of 3.8 V, while the rectifying diodes of RC3
based on a high impedance conjugate matching system (i.e. and RC4 are HSMS2862 with a forward bias voltage of 0.65 V
both antenna and rectifier are of high impedance). Therefore, and a breakdown voltage of 7 V [32]. Therefore, the rectifiers
compared with conventional rectennas with a standard 50 Ω using the former diode (HSMS2852) would have a lower power
impedance system, the effect on the reflection coefficient of the consumption due to its smaller forward bias voltage, but the
rectenna caused by the impedance variation of the rectifier (due circuits would break down at a low input power level due to its
to the nonlinearity) is not very significant for the proposed smaller breakdown voltage. In contrast, the rectifier using the
system. Consequently, we may take advantage of this feature to latter diode (HSMS2862) breaks down at higher input power
make the proposed rectenna suitable for a wide input power and levels but meanwhile has a higher consumption due to its larger
load impedance range without the introduction of additional forward bias and reverse breakdown voltages. In conventional
matching circuit elements (which is normally a very complex rectenna designs, the impedance matching networks for
procedure for conventional rectenna designs). rectifiers using different types of diodes are normally very
As shown in Fig. 8, based on the rectenna proposed in different, since the packaging technologies and equivalent
Section-II, three additional output ports are introduced for the circuit models of the diodes are different [36], [37]. But, in our
OCFP antenna, ports 1 and 3 are orthogonal to ports 2 and 4. If case, the proposed antenna may directly match well with the
we connect two identical rectifying circuits (RC1 and RC2) to rectifiers using different diodes due to the high impedance
ports 1 and 2 respectively, and combine the output DC power of system as discussed earlier.
them, the rectenna is able to receive and rectify the incoming The simulated RF-DC conversion efficiency of the proposed
waves with random polarizations [31]. Similarly, this dual rectenna at three different frequency bands is shown in Figs. 9
polarization capability is applied to ports 3 and 4 as well. To (a) as a function of the input power level and (b) a function of
achieve a wide input power range, ports 1 and 2 are configured the load resistance respectively. Here we test the low power and
for low power DC output while port 3 and 4 are connected to high power output ports separately (by disconnecting the DC
the rectifiers for relatively high input powers. A DC guideline guideline). A 2000 Ω load resistor is firstly used. From Fig.
could be electrically connected between the low power and 9(a), it can be seen that the proposed high impedance antenna is
high power rectifiers. well matched to the impedance of the rectifiers using two
As an example, the rectifying diodes of RC1 and RC2 are different types of diodes for the desired frequency bands around
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION

(a) (b)
Fig. 10. (a) The layout of the proposed frequency-reconfigurable adaptive Fig. 11. Illustration of the shorting pins configuration for frequency
rectenna. (b) The fabricated rectenna example. reconfigurable design. The pins with electrical connections are highlighted by
circles.
1.83, 2.14 and 2.45 GHz (for mobile, and Wi-Fi/ISM bands), TABLE I
OPERATING FREQUENCY OF THE RECTENNA FOR DIFFERENT CASES
since the conversion efficiency is relatively high in all cases. In
addition, the conversion efficiency of the low power output port
Parameter D Operating Frequency
(RC1 + RC2) is about 10% higher than that of the high power (unit: mm) Band (unit: GHz)
output port (RC3 + RC4) when the input power is between -20
and 0 dBm. But, the low power rectifiers break down at the
Case I 5 1.1, 1.6, 1.9 and 2.4
input power of 7 dBm with maximum conversion efficiency
around 60 – 70%, while the high-power rectifiers break down at Case II 10 1.3, 1.7, 2 and 2.4
a higher input power level (around 14 dBm) with conversion
efficiency up to 80%. At 0 dBm input power, the efficiency of Case III 15 1.4, 1.8, 2.1 and 2.5
the two-rectifier case as shown in Fig. 9 is a bit lower than that
of the single rectifier case as depicted in Fig. 6. This is because Case IV 20 1.5, 1.9, 2.2 and 2.6
that the rectifier impedance is slightly changed when the two
rectifiers are connected. Therefore, it could slightly affect the Case V 25 1.5, 2.1, 2.4 and 2.7
conversion efficiency of the rectenna due to the impedance
mismatch.
Next, by setting the input power to the optimal values (7
dBm for RC1+RC2 and 14 dBm for RC3+RC4) for the IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS AND VALIDATIONS
rectifiers, the load resistance is changed from 100 to 5000 Ω.
The layout of the prototype rectenna is shown in Fig. 10
From Fig. 9(b), it can be seen that the conversion efficiency of
along with a picture of the fabricated example. The overall size
the rectifiers at different frequency bands is nearly consistent of the PCB is 90 × 90 × 1.58 mm3. It can be seen that the
over a wide range of load impedance. If we set conversion proposed rectenna is of a very simple structure with just a
efficiency > 60% as a figure of merit, it is demonstrated that the number of diodes and capacitors for the basic rectification,
proposed rectenna is adaptive for a wide input power range energy storage and output. No matching networks and extra
between 0 to 15 dBm, and for a wide load impedance range circuit elements are added. Meanwhile, to realize the frequency
from 800 to 4000 Ω. The nonlinear effect of the rectifier is reconfigurable feature, a series of holes are produced on the
therefore significantly reduced which is of high significance for patch along the directions of horizontal and vertical feeding
WPT and WEH used in practice. ports of the antenna. These holes are used to configure the
It is demonstrated that this design is suitable for different shorting pins with different positions. By soldering or removing
types of rectifying diodes without the need of changing the the electrical connections of the holes, the operating frequency
impedance matching circuit: by substituting the presented band of the rectenna can be manually tuned by changing the
diodes using other low power consumption diodes (e.g., distance (parameter D) between the shorting pins and patch
heterojunction backward tunnel diodes [38]), better energy center. As depicted in Fig. 11, there are five different scenarios
conversion efficiency could be achieved at lower input power for the configurations of shorting pins, which are D = 5, 10, 15,
levels (e.g., -30 to -10 dBm). The design presented in this paper 20 and 25 mm respectively. According to Fig. 7, the operating
is just an example to illustrate the proposed new idea. By frequency band of the rectenna for these five cases are given in
following the design concept, the details of the rectenna could Table I. In this way, the rectenna can achieve a wide selectable
be modified to develop simple and compact rectennas that are frequency band from 1.1 to 2.7 GHz
As a design example, the shorting pins on the patch as
suitable for any operating conditions without using complex
shown in Figs. 10 (a) and (b) were configured for the Case III
matching circuits in the design.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION

Fig. 12. The measurement setup of the proposed rectenna. The rectenna
direction is tuned to match with its maximum gain direction.

V-Port H-Port

Fig. 14. The simulated and measured conversion efficiency vs. frequency at
three different input power levels. The load resistance is 2000 Ω.

(a)

V-Port H-Port

Fig. 15. The simulated and measured conversion efficiency vs. input power
(b) level at three different frequency bands. The load resistance is 2000 Ω.
V-Port H-Port TABLE II
SIMULATED RADIATION EFFICIENCY OF THE ANTENNA
Radiation
Frequency Port Efficiency
(CST simulated)
1.83 GHz V-Port 92.3%
H-Port 95.6%
2.14 GHz V-Port 94.9%
H-Port 97.1%
(c)
Fig. 13. The simulated 3D radiation patterns (with directivities) of the proposed 2.45 GHz V-Port 80.7%
rectenna for the vertical-port (ports 1 and 3) and horizontal-port (ports 2 and 4) H-Port 82.5%
at (a) 1.83 GHz (b) 2.14 GHz and (c) 2.45 GHz.
a calibrated horn antenna R&SHF906. The proposed rectenna
where its operating frequency bands were of around 1.4, 1.8,
was used to receive the signals with a distance of 1 m from the
2.1 and 2.45 GHz (D = 15 mm in this case). It is also noted that
transmitting horn antenna. The transmitting power was
the high power and low power rectifiers were connected by the
measured by using a power meter while the received power by
DC guideline (the ground connection at RC2 was disabled in
this case, as shown in Fig. 8). Thus there was only one output the rectenna was calculated by using the Friis transmission
equation [33].
port for the measurement of DC power in this example. λ
The measurement setup of the rectenna is shown in Fig. 12. 𝑃𝑟 = 𝑃𝑡 + 𝐺𝑡 + 𝐺𝑟 + 20 log (2)
4𝜋𝑟
The signals generated by an RF signal generator were amplified where Pr is the received power in dBm, Pt is the transmitting
by using a 30 dB gain power amplifier (PA), and transmitted by power of the horn in dBm, Gt is the realized gain of the horn in
dBi, Gr is the realized gain of the proposed rectenna in dBi, is
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION

TABLE III
COMPARISON OF THE PROPOSED RECTENNA AND RELATED DESIGNS

Complexity Maximum RF-DC Input power level (IPL) and

Operating
Ref. (year) of the overall conversion load impedance range Summary of the key features
Frequency (GHz)
design efficiency (%) (LIR) for conversion
efficiency > 60%
[17] (2014) Single-band Very complex 75 at 19 dBm IPL: 16 – 20 dBm Buck-boost converter as the load to
2.45 improve the rectifier linearity
LIR: 100 – 5000 Ω
[18] (2015) Reconfigurable Very complex 70 at 16.5 dBm IPL: 12 – 18 dBm Use switches in the matching network
5.2, 5.8 for reconfigurable frequency band
LIR: 150 Ω
[22] (2015) Dual-band Complex 70 at 0 dBm IPL: -5 – 3 dBm Resistance compression matching
0.915, 2.45 network for improving the rectifier
LIR: 500 – 3000 Ω
linearity
[23] (2015) Four-band Very complex 84 at 0 dBm IPL: -10 – 0 dBm Stacked rectifier arrays for multiband
0.9, 1.8, 2.1, 2.4 energy harvesting
LIR: 11000 Ω
[24] (2012) Tunable Very complex 80 at 30 dBm IPL: Tunable 8 – 30 dBm Switchable adaptive rectifier arrays for a
0.9 – 2.45 wide input power range
LIR: 750 Ω
[26] (2016) Six-band Very complex 80 at -3 dBm IPL: -15 – 0 dBm Improved impedance matching networks
0.55, 0.75, 0.9, for consistent conversion efficiency
LIR: 10 – 80 kΩ
1.85, 2.15, 2.45
[27] (2016) Broad-band Simple 75 at 20 dBm IPL: Tunable 0 – 23 dBm Broadband high impedance conjugate
0.9 – 1.1, 1.8 – 2.5 matching without additional matching
LIR: 200 – 2000 Ω
circuits
This work Selectable Simplest 85 at 12 dBm IPL: 0 – 15 dBm Selectable broadband, adaptive input
(2017) 1.1 – 2.7 power and load impedance range, no
LIR: 700 – 4500 Ω
matching circuits

the wavelength of interest, and r is the distance (r = 1 m). Since

the antenna has been integrated with the rectifier, the realized
gain of the rectenna cannot be measured with a typical 50 Ω
port. The realized gain was calculated using the directivity of
the antenna multiples the radiation efficiency of the antenna
(simulated using the CST) and impedance matching efficiency
of the complete rectenna (obtained from the ADS). An example
of the simulated 3D radiation patterns (for the vertical ports 1 &
3 and horizontal ports 2 & 4) of the proposed rectenna is shown
in Fig. 13 at the frequency bands of interest. The antenna is
linearly polarized over the V- and H-ports, while the maximum
radiation fields at 1.83 and 2.14 GHz are realized at the
boresight direction of the antenna. The maximum radiation
beam of the antenna is slightly tilted at 2.45 GHz. In this case,
the antenna direction should be tuned in the measurement in
order to match with its maximum radiation directions.
According to Fig. 13, it can be seen that the maximum gains of Fig. 16. The simulated and measured conversion efficiency vs. load resistance
at three different frequency bands. The input power level is 12 dBm.
the antenna for all ports are about 7.47, 8.24 and 8.66 dBi at
1.83, 2.14 and 2.45 GHz respectively. Moreover, the The maximum efficiency is about 85% at 1.83 GHz, 75% at
corresponding simulated antenna radiation efficiency at these 2.14 GHz and 70% at 2.45 GHz respectively. Next, the input
frequencies is given in Table II for the vertical and horizontal power is fixed at the optimal value (12 dBm), and the
ports. The efficiency is over 80% for all cases. conversion efficiency is measured versus a range of load
The simulated and measured conversion efficiency of the impedance, as shown in Fig. 16. It can be seen that, at the
proposed rectenna example (as shown in Fig. 10) are given in desired frequency bands, the conversion efficiency is
Fig. 14. It can be seen that the rectenna has high efficiency constantly high (over 60%) over a large load impedance range
(e.g., over 60%) at four different frequency bands (around 1.45, from 700 to 4500 Ω. The above results have shown good
1.83, 2.15 and 2.45 GHz) with about a 40–50 MHz bandwidth agreements between the simulation and measurement due to the
of each. The efficiency is almost maintained for three different simplified structure and fabrication process of this design.
power levels (from 0 to 14 dBm). If the efficiency is studied as A comparison between the proposed rectenna using the
a function of the input power level, as depicted in Fig. 15, the novel design method and other related work reported in the
efficiency is always higher than 60% for the input power literature is given in Table III. Our rectenna has a very wide
between 0 and 15 dBm. The maximum conversion efficiency is selectable frequency band with relatively high conversion
achieved at the input power level of around 12 dBm.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION

efficiency (up to 85%). Compared with other work that uses [8] A. A. Nasir, X. Zhou, S. Durrani and R. A. Kennedy, "Relaying protocols
for wireless energy harvesting and information processing," IEEE Trans.
buck-boost converter [17], resistance compression network
Wireless Communications, vol. 12, no. 7, pp. 3622-3636, Jul. 2013.
[22] and switchable adaptive rectifier arrays [24] etc. for [9] V. C. Gungor and G. P. Hancke, “Industrial wireless sensor networks:
reducing the nonlinearity of the system, our rectenna has Challenges, design principles, and technical approaches,” IEEE Trans.
demonstrated an improved circuit linearity with consistent Ind. Electron., vol. 56, no. 10, pp. 4258–4265, Oct. 2009.
[10] R. Colella, L. Tarricone, L. Catarinucci, “SPARTACUS: Self-powered
efficiency over a wide input power and load impedance range.
augmented RFID tag for autonomous computing and ubiquitous sensing,”
But, our rectenna does not need the complex matching IEEE Trans. on Antennas and Propag., vol.63, no.5, pp.2272-2281, May
networks or circuit elements; thus, it has the simplest structure 2015
for the rectennas with the similar performance. Moreover, it [11] M. Fantuzzi, D. Masotti, and A. Costanzo, “A novel integrated UWB
UHF one-port antenna for localization and energy harvesting,” IEEE
should be noted that the presented design is different from our
Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 63, no. 9, pp. 3839–3848, Sep. 2015.
previous work in [27]. In the previous work, we demonstrated a [12] Y. Cao, T. Jiang and Z. Han, “A survey of emerging M2M systems:
method of tuning the impedance value of a broadband dipole context, task, and objective,” IEEE Internet Things J., vol. 3, No. 6, pp.
antenna in order to get it matched with the rectifier impedance 1246-1258, Jun. 2016.
[13] L. Catarinucci et al., “An IoT-aware architecture for smart healthcare
directly, which could be considered as a design guide for
systems,” IEEE Internet Things J., vol. 2, No. 6, pp. 515-526, Mar. 2015.
broadband rectennas. This work introduces a new method of [14] H. J. Visser and R. J. M. Vullers, “RF energy harvesting and transport for
developing the rectenna from a single narrowband patch wireless sensor network applications: Principles and requirements,” Proc.
antenna to a multiband device without the need of impedance IEEE, vol. 101, no. 6, pp. 1410–1423, Jun. 2013.
[15] A. Costanzo et al., “Electromagnetic energy harvesting and wireless
matching networks. This design could be a good example for
power transmission: A unified approach,” Proc. IEEE, vol. 102, no. 11,
simplified multiband rectennas. In addition, the conventional pp. 1692–1711, Nov. 2014.
multiband and broadband rectenna designs normally require a [16] J. Colomer-Farrarons, P. Miribel-Català, A. Saiz-Vela, and J. Samitier “A
complex software optimization procedure (for tuning the multiharvested self-powered system in a low-voltage low-power
technology,” IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron., vol. 58, no. 9, pp. 4250–4263,
matching circuit components). The proposed new method is
Sep. 2011.
relatively simple without the selection of circuit elements hence [17] Y. Huang, N. Shinohara, and T. Mitani, “A constant efficiency of
is of great significance for volume production of such rectennas rectifying circuit in an extremely wide load range,” IEEE Trans. Microw.
in practice. Theory Tech., vol. 62, no. 4, pp. 986–993, Apr. 2014.
[18] P. Lu, X. Yang, J. Li, and B. Wang, “A compact frequency reconfigurable
rectenna for 5.2- and 5.8-GHz wireless power transmission,” IEEE Trans.
V. CONCLUSION Power Electron., vol. 30, no. 11, pp. 6006–6010, Nov. 2015.
[19] Y. Han, O. Leitermann, D. A. Jackson, J. M. Rivas, and D. J. Perreault,
A new design method for an adaptive rectenna with a wide
“Resistance compression networks for radio-frequency power
selectable frequency band has been presented. The proposed conversion,” IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 41–53, Jan.
rectenna using this design method has achieved more than 60% 2007.
energy conversion efficiency at four frequency bands that are [20] T. Paing, J. Shin, R. Zane, and Z. Popovic, “Resistor emulation approach
selectable from 1.1 to 2.7 GHz, and over a wide input power to low-power RF energy harvesting,” IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol.
23, no. 3, pp. 1494–1501, Mar. 2008.
range from 0 to 15 dBm and a wide load impedance range from [21] C. Song, Y. Huang, J. Zhou and P. Carter, “Improved ultra-wideband
700 to 4500 Ω. The most attractive feature is that the proposed rectennas using hybrid resistance compression technique,” IEEE Trans.
rectenna does not need a complex impedance matching Antennas Propag., vol. 65, no. 4, pp. 2057–2062, Apr. 2017.
network, thus the rectenna can be of a compact size, a simple [22] K. Niotaki, A. Georgiadis, A. Collado, and J. S. Vardakas, “Dual-band
resistance compression networks for improved rectifier performance,”
structure and low cost. It has shown excellent performance for IEEE Trans. Microw. Theory Tech., vol. 62, no. 12, pp. 3512–3521, Nov.
the target WPT and WEH applications. The design concept is 2015.
easy to follow and of great significance for the real production [23] V. Kuhn, C. Lahuec, F. Seguin, and C. Person, “A multi-band stacked RF
energy harvester with rf-to-dc efficiency up to 84%,” IEEE Trans.
of rectennas with simplified structures and reduced costs.
Microw. Theory Tech., vol. 63, no. 5, pp. 1768–1778, May 2015.
[24] V. Marian, B. Allard, C. Vollaire, and J. Verdier, “Strategy for
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION

transmission,” IEEE Trans. Antennas and Propag., vol. 62, no. 10, pp. the Head of the High Frequency Engineering Group and Deputy Head of
5242–5249, Oct. 2014. Department. He has authored over 300 refereed papers in leading international
[32] HSMS-285x, HSMS-286x Surface Mount Microwave Schottky Detector journals and conference proceedings, and authored Antennas: From Theory to
Diodes, Data Sheet. Avago Technologies, Inc., San Jose, CA, USA, 2015. Practice (Wiley, 2008) and Reverberation Chambers: Theory and Applications
[33] S. Ladan, A. B. Guntupalli, and K. Wu, “A high-efficiency 24 GHz to EMC and Antenna Measurements (Wiley, 2016).Prof. Huang is a Senior
rectenna development towards millimeter-wave energy harvesting and Fellow of the HEA. He is a Fellow of the IET. He has received many research
wireless power transmission,” IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. I, Reg. Papers, grants from research councils, government agencies, charity, EU and industry,
vol. 61, no. 12, pp. 3358–3366, Dec. 2014. acted as a consultant to various companies, and served on a number of the
[34] H. J. Visser, S. Keyrouz and A. B. Smolders, "Optimized rectenna national and international technical committees and has been an Editor,
design", Wireless Power Transfer, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 44–50, Mar. 2015. Associate Editor, or Guest Editor of four international journals. He has been a
[35] H. Sun, Y.-X. Guo, M. He, and Z. Zhong, “Design of a high-efficiency keynote/invited speaker and organizer of many conferences and workshops
2.45-GHz rectenna for low-input-power energy harvesting,” IEEE (e.g., WiCom 2006, 2010, IEEE iWAT2010, and LAPC2012). He is currently
Antennas Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 11, pp. 929–932, 2012. the Editor-in-Chief of Wireless Engineering and Technology, Associate Editor
[36] H. Sakaki et al., "A novel wide dynamic range rectifier design for wireless of IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters, U.K., and Ireland Rep to
Power Transfer system," in 2014 Asia-Pacific Microwave Conference, the European Association of Antenna and Propagation (EurAAP).
Sendai, Japan, 2014, pp. 1208-1210.
[37] H. Sun, Z. Zhong, and Y.-X. Guo, “An adaptive reconfigurable rectifier
for wireless power transmission,” IEEE Microw. Wireless Compon. Lett.,
vol. 23, no. 9, pp. 492–494, Sep. 2013.
[38] C. H. P. Lorenz et al., “Breaking the efficiency barrier for ambient Paul Carter received the B.Sc. degree (Hons.) in physics
microwave power harvesting with heterojunction backward tunnel from the University of Manchester, U.K., in 1987, the
diodes,” IEEE Trans. Microw. Theory Techn., vol. 63, no. 12, pp. 4544– M.Sc. degree (Eng.) in microelectronic systems and
4555, Dec. 2015. telecommunications, in 1988, and the Ph.D. degree in
electrical engineering and electronics, in 1991 both from
the University of Liverpool, U.K.
He is the President and CEO of Global Wireless
Chaoyun Song (S’16–M’17) received the B.Eng. Solutions, Inc. (GWS), Dulles, VA, USA, a leading
(Hons.) degree in telecommunication engineering independent benchmarking solution vendor for the
from Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, Suzhou, wireless industry. With more than 25 years of experience
China, in 2012, and the M.Sc. degree and PhD in the cellular network industry, he founded Global
degree with distinctions in electrical engineering Wireless Solutions to provide operators with access to in-depth, accurate
and electronics from The University of Liverpool network benchmarking, analysis, and testing. Prior to GWS, he directed
(UoL), Liverpool, U.K., in 2013 and 2017 business development and CDMA engineering efforts for LLC, the world’s
respectively. largest independent wireless engineering company.
He previously worked as a Research Assistant
and Antenna Design Engineer at the UoL and BAE
systems, Chelmsford, UK during 2015-2016. He is currently a Postdoctoral
Research Associate at the High Frequency Engineering Research Group of the
University of Liverpool, UK. Dr. Song has authored/co-authored more than 25
papers in internationally refereed journals and conference proceedings. He has Jiafeng Zhou received the B.Sc. degree in radio
also filed 5 US and UK patents. He was the receipts of many international physics from Nanjing University, Nanjing, China, in
awards such as the winner of the IET Present Around the World Competition 1997, and the Ph.D. degree from the University of
(2016) and the EM Bright-Sparks Award for outstanding young (under age 30) Birmingham, Birmingham, U.K., in 2004. His Ph.D.
electronic engineers in the UK (2018). He won the BAE Systems Chairman’s research concerned high-temperature superconductor
Award in 2017 for the innovation of next generation GNSS antennas. microwave filters.
His current research interests include liquid antennas, novel materials, He was with the National Meteorological Satellite
wireless energy harvesting, rectifying antennas, circular polarization antenna, Centre of China, Beijing, China, from 1997, for two and
power management circuit, wireless power transfer, GNSS and anti-jamming a half years, where he was involved in the development
technologies and smart sensors for the IoT. Dr. Song has been a regular of communication systems for Chinese geostationary
reviewer of 10 international journals including Applied Physics Letters, meteorological satellites. From 2004 to 2006, he was a Research Fellow with
Scientific Reports, IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, IEEE the University of Birmingham, where he was involved in phased arrays for
Transactions on Industrial Electronics, IEEE Transactions on Microwave reflector observing systems. He then moved to the Department of Electronic
Theory and Techniques, IEEE Transaction on Circuits and Systems I: Regular and Electrical Engineering, University of Bristol, Bristol, U.K., until 2013,
Papers, IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters and IEEE Sensors where he was involved in the development of highly efficient and linear
letters. amplifiers. He is currently with the Department of Electrical Engineering and
Electronics, The University of Liverpool, Liverpool, U.K. His current research
interests include microwave power amplifiers, filters, electromagnetic energy
harvesting, and wireless power transfer.

Yi Huang (S’91–M’96–SM’06) received the B.Sc.

degree in physics from Wuhan University, Wuhan,
China, in 1984, the M.Sc.(Eng.) degree in microwave Sumin David Joseph received the B.Tech degree
engineering NRIET, Nanjing, China, in 1987, and the (Hons.) in Electronics & Communication from
D.Phil. degree in communications from the Cochin University of Science and Technology, India
University of Oxford, Oxford, U.K., in 1994.He has in 2012. He received his M.Tech degree (Hons.) in
been conducting research in the areas of wireless Communication Systems from Visvesvaraya
communications, applied electromagnetics, radar, National Institute of Technology, India in 2015. He
and antennas since 1987. He was with NRIET, as a is currently working towards a dual Ph.D. degree in
Radar Engineer and spent various periods with the electrical engineering at the University of Liverpool,
Universities of Birmingham, Oxford, and Essex, U.K and National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan.
U.K. as a Member of Research Staff. In 1994, he joined British Telecom Labs, He worked as a lab engineer under CoE at
as a Research Fellow. In 1995, he joined the Department of Electrical Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology,
Engineering and Electronics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, U.K., as a
faculty member, where he is currently a Full Professor in Wireless Engineering,
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION

India where he was involved in projects of national importance. His research

interests include self-biased circulators, mm-wave antenna arrays, rectifying
antennas, rectifiers, wireless power transfer and energy harvesting.

Gaosheng Li (M’08) received his B.S. degree in

electromagnetic field and microwave and his M.S.
degree as well as his PH. D. in electronic science and
technology from the National University of Defense
Technology (NUDT), Changsha, China, in 2002,
2004 and 2013, respectively.
He has been with NUDT as a Teaching Assistant
from 2004 to 2006, and a Lecturer from 2006 to
2011, and then as an Associate Professor since 2011.
From 2014 to 2016, he was with Nanjing University
of Aeronautics and Astronautics (NUAA) and Wuxi
Huace Electronic Systems Co., Ltd., China as a Postdoctoral Research
FellowFrom 2016 to 2017, he is a Visiting Scholar at the University of
Liverpool (UoL), United Kingdom, sponsored by China Scholarship Council
(CSC). His research interests include Antennas and Propagation (AP),
Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC), Wireless Propagation and Microwave
Systems.
Dr. Li is the author or coauthor of 6 books and 99 papers published in
journals and conference proceedings. He owns 21 Chinese patents and 6
software copyrights. He won 2 national scientific prizes in 2007 and 2013,
respectively. He is a Member (2008) of the IEEE AP Society and EMC Society,
a Member (2016) of IET, a Member (2017) of ACES, and a Member (2011) of
the Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers
(IEICE), as well as a Senior Member (M’2008, SM’2014) of the Chinese
Institute of Electronics (CIE).

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