Wireless Power Transmission for the Internet of

Things (IoT)
Mohamed Zied Chaari Somaya Al-maadeed
Qatar University Qatar University
Computer Science and Engineering Department Computer Science and Engineering Department
Doha, Qatar Doha, Qatar
chaari [email protected] s [email protected]

Abstract—In some cases, long battery life may be essential to

IoT devices, and early failures of actuators and sensors because
of the rapid discharging of battery may lead to unacceptably
high replacement costs. Critical to the implementation of this
Internet Of Things (IoT) is the design of energy-efficient solutions
aiming toward a low consumption current and create a green
society. Many IoT devices rely on small, rechargeable batteries, so
charging a wireless battery is essential for several reasons. Much
research and development are working on how can is powering
IoT devices wirelessly. Wireless power transmission technology is
the diffusion of microwave power transmission without using any
physical support. The vision of future technology is the Internet
of Things IoT charging device without wires. The objective of the
scope of work is to combine the wireless power technology with a
smart house using IoT. In this research paper, we designed and
realized a wireless lighting technology using the fundamentals
of microwave radiation. We will send microwave energy from Fig. 1. How can is powering IoT devices wirelessly
(Position 1) to the receiver (Position 2) to turn up an LED lamp
10 W a distance (50 meters). So the proposed prototype takes
account of all parameters above to deliver sufficient energy to electricity distribution still relies on cables for its delivery.
turn on the LED lamp 10 W wirelessly on the distance of 50 The novelty of the system is that IoT devices and household
meters at the smart house. use WPT for electricity supply. The energy is wirelessly
Index Terms—IoT network, Wireless Power Transfer, Mi-
crowave energy, Coil antenna, Rectenna, RF Rectifier. supplied from an access local power station already fixed
at the top of the house. Both industry and academia know
I. I NTRODUCTION that WPT will be the solution to a variety of problems,
The Internet of Things is an increasing infrastructure of including IoT devices [10], [11]. With WPT, the device has
internet-enabled objects ranging from sensors to LED light, three significant advantages to contribute to the IoT and smart
all aimed at increasing control, data collection, and even house positively. Firstly, the increase in renewable electricity
automation [1], [2], [3], [4]. IoT can be a massive benefit for integration decreases the change of batteries many times. Sec-
houses when used appropriately. To solve the connection of the ondly, house growth will have a lesser impact on distribution
electrical problem with IoT devices will be using microwave and transmission capacity. Lastly, the proposed system will
power transmission technology for future smart city planning. promote industrial investment by increasing IoT technology at
The question arises on how long-distance Wireless Power the smart city, lowering implementation cost prices.
Electricity will change the concept of IoT [5], [6]. This research is toward creating a smart house can combi-
Charging can be realized in various ways, and applications nate between IoT and wireless power electricity.
using wireless power technology are expanding to mobile By the way, in this study, already the portable microwave
and portable devices, home appliances and office equipment, station exists and will be used in this research and the testing
and electric vehicles. In particular, WPT technology is useful phase.
in providing electrical power to the Internet of things (IoT)
II. DESIGN OF THE HARVESTER COIL ANTENNA
devices in constrained environments. Wireless Power Trans-
mission (WPT), the Internet of things (IoT), and wireless The wireless power harvester device is an essential part of
power technology will become a cornerstone in the design this technology. Coil antenna rises like the right candidate
of new and growth of human settlements [7], [8], [9]. meeting these requirements due to its versatility of possible
In smart cities, legislation is requiring a change of old geometry and straightforward integrity with IoT devices. The
practices towards efficient use of resources. Nevertheless, efficiency of a coil antenna depends upon their geometrical

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 TABLE I
O PTIMAL ANTENNA PARAMETERS

Operating frequency 2.45 GHz

Number of turns on coil 10
Length of coil 36.58mm
Inner diameter of coil 180 mm
Outer diameter of coil 200 mm
Thickess of winding layer 1 mm
Copper condictivity 5.8 e7 S/m
Feed lenght 10 mm
Rin 50Ω

The optimized parameters for the antenna designed for

an S-band frequency are shown above in Table I, and the
Fig. 2. Using microwaves source to power IoT devices performance results, it will be studied and analyzed in the
following subsection.
shape, physical dimensions, and properties of the material B. Simulation and discussion
[12]. In this research work, the size of the antenna is a
significant parameter to be considered antennas are relatively The design of the antenna schematic and layout is made
broadband, typically useful over a range of frequencies using the CST microwave software, and it is further validated
relative to the diameter of the waveguide, especially the by confirming these results utilizing ADS keysight software.
system will installed into a device. The ratio of the radiation We affected many parameters like; Directivity, Reflection
intensity is related to the beamwidth of the feed antenna. coefficient, VSWR plot, Radiation pattern 3D, and the current
At low frequency, the transfer of energy is efficient, but distribution.
the antenna footprint is significant, and in our research, we 1) Directivity: The directivity gain of the coil antenna
cannot increase it more than (100mm × 100mm), so can showingat 2.419 GHz is 3.75 dB, as shown in Figure 4.
install the harvester antenna with rectifier circuit on any IoT
device medium size.
Where:
Operating frequency fr = 2.45GHz
Speed of light C = 3x108 m/s
L(H)= Inductance in Henries

A. Dimension of the receiver coil antenna

The coil antenna size is generally dependent upon
the resonant frequency fr , and the center frequency
fr = 2.45GHz.
Fig. 4. Directivity of the proposed antenna
The geometry to install a harvester coil antenna into the IoT
device has proved, as shown in Figure 3. 2) Reflection coefficient of the antenna: Return loss (S11 )
presented in Figure 5, and we obtain a very high return
loss, -9.372 dB at the designed frequency of 2.462 GHz. The
bandwidth of about 25 MHz (2.74%).

Fig. 3. Geometry of the proposed coil based antenna Fig. 5. Simulated reflection coefficient of the antenna

Tabulated values present the parameters of the coil antenna 3) VSWR PLOT: The voltage standing wave ratio (VSWR)
shown in Table 1. of 1.159 at the 2.45 GHz, as shown in Figure 6.

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 ferred to the full-wave bridge rectifier by an impedance match-
ing circuit, to convert into DC power, which is accumulated
in a battery of IoT devices. The rectifier is a Schottky diode
which impedance is matched to the dipoles by a low pass filter.
Then, the receiver signal is efficient via the rectifier circuit
that utilizes HSMS2850 (Avago) Schottky diodes [13], [14],
[15]. A final subsystem acts as a backup system by storing
power in the IoT battery device. The first storage device stores
Fig. 6. Simulated VSWR frequency plot and accumulates charge thereon from the rectified (DC) signal
outputted by the rectifier circuit. As for the rectifier topologies,
the choice of the full-wave bridge rectifier, it will be studied
4) Radiation pattern 3D: Figure 7 shows the 3D radiation and analyzed in the following subsection.
pattern of the proposed antenna which shows that there are
minimized back lobe, least side lobes and a maximum gain of
-3 dB.

Fig. 9. Block diagram of the proposed harvester circuit

A. Design Rectanna a full-wave bridge rectifier

In this part, the RF-DC conversion circuit is designed using
the bridge rectifier. The input impedance of the rectifier is
Fig. 7. Isometric 3D view of 2.45 GHz antenna radiation pattern designed to match the output impedance to maximize the
power transfer and to increase the signal reflected from the
5) Current distrubition: The 3D current distribution plot load. Knowing the receiving antenna is designed to operate
gives the relationship between the co-polarization (desired) at 2.45 GHz with the output impedance of 50Ω [16], [17].
and cross-polarization (undesired) components. The maximum Figure10 shows the schematic design of the rectifier circuit.
surface current is 13.8179 A/m at fr =2.433 GHz, as shown
in Figure 8. Precisely, the designed antenna has a simulated

Fig. 10. Schematic diagram of microwave harvesting circuit of full wave

bridge rectifier with HSMS 2850 diode (Agilent ADS)

Figure 11 shows the simulation result of the full-wave

Fig. 8. Plot showing the antenna current distrubition
bridge rectifier using diode HSMS2850. The below simulation
gain of 5.399 dBi, the directivity of 3.75 dBi and the power shows the output voltage (1.979V).
flow 165559 V.A/m2 at fr =2.433 GHz. We noticed that using only one RF harvester circuit with
the full-wave bridge rectifier, and it is not enough to produce
III. E NERGY H ARVESTER DESIGN AT 2.45 GH Z electricity for charging a battery to any IoT device. So we
The coil antenna captures electromagnetic radiation from study the topology to make a multi-coil high-efficiency wire-
the microwave power station. This microwave signal is trans- less power harvester system to prove to be highly efficient to

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 Figure 14 shows the measured reflection coefficient (S11) in
the Magnitude plot. It was around -9.5 dB from 2.455 GHz,
and it is not the same simulation results. Also, the antenna can
reach a maximum Gain of 3.25 dBi.

Fig. 11. The simulated output voltage (V) of the full-wave bridge rectifier
circuit

Fig. 14. Measured return loss (S11) of the 2.45 GHz

The radiation efficiency is 77.23%. All the antenna pa-

rameters have been tested and optimized to deliver high-
performance receivers. The results are satisfactory and show
the advantage of using a multi-coil antenna for acquiring
microwave energy to charge the battery of IoT devices.
In summary, all the simulated and real measurements in-
dicate that the harvester multi-coil antenna has an excellent
performance. The present energy acquiring device is capable
of receiving microwave power transmitted from the S-band,
Fig. 12. Multi-coil High-efficiency wireless power harvester system and convert the received signals into electrical energy. Figure
15 shows the photograph of the receiver harvester circuit,
a multi-coil high-efficiency harvesting wireless microwave
supply enough output current to charge an IoT device battery circuit.
[18], [19], [20], as shown in figure 12.
The topology to harvested maximum power according to
the coupling methods between the antenna and the rectifier
circuit.
IV. P ROTOTYPE RESULT AND DISCUSSION
Figure 13 shows the portable microwave power transmission
station with an operating frequency of fr = 2.45GHz and
microwave power 100 Watts.

Fig. 15. Photograph of the receiver harvester cicruit

S11 in the rectifier circuit is a parameter that states the total

of power that delivered to the load and does not return as
reflection, Return loss (S11 ), we obtain a very high return
loss, -10.15 dB at the designed frequency of 2.462 GHz.
Actual test, it can be observed the efficiency of the harvester
circuit changes according to the distance. The amount of power
Fig. 13. The microwave transmitter system received change according to the gap between the microwave
power station and receiver station, as is presented in table 2.
The receiver antenna is tested and measured using the An examination of the prototype in Figure 16, reveals that
spectrum analyzer successfully. Then, the antenna prototype the values of the calculated results are approximately the same
is ready to be tested with an ENA Vector Network Analyzers. results of the simulation by computer.

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 TABLE II ber of the Qatar Foundation). The statements made herein are
T HE EFFICIENCY OF THE HARVESTER CIRCUIT CHANGES ACCORDING TO solely the responsibility of the authors.
THE GAP DISTANCE

The gap distance between emitter and The IoT device Receiver power R EFERENCES
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