Circular Waveguide Array Rectenna Equipped with Pump-Charge and DC-DC Converter Circuits for 1.8GHz RF Energy Harvesting Application

Abstract

One of key performances in radio frequency (RF) energy harvesting application is how to efficiently capture the ambient RF energy to be rectified for energizing small electronic appliances. In this paper, a rectenna equipped with pump-charge and DC-DC converter is proposed for 1.8GHz RF energy harvesting application. The selection of Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) frequency at 1.8GHz is based on the frequent use of these frequencies for communication so that it has potential to receive a lot of RF energy. The proposed rectenna is developed using 2$\\times$2 circular waveguide array antenna, while the pump-charge and DC-DC converter circuits are implemented to gain high enough direct current (DC) output voltage from the captured RF signal. The experimental characterization result shows that the RF signal output of circular waveguide array antenna in the range of -10dBm to 1dBm has been successfully rectified to obtain the DC output voltage of 0–2V and 0–3V for pump-charge and DC-DC converter, respectively.