Multiport Pixel Rectenna for Ambient RF Energy Harvesting

Abstract

We describe the design of a multiport pixel rectenna for ambient radio-frequency (RF) energy harvesting consisting of an optimized triple-port pixel antenna and a triple-port rectifier with dc combining. The advantages of the multiport pixel approach include enhanced harvested RF power for a given area as well as a reduction in the antenna matching requirements. We formulate the design of the triple-port pixel antenna as a binary optimization problem with an objective function related to harvested RF power in the GSM-1800 band for specified power angular spectrums without the need for antenna matching components. The optimization of the triple-port pixel antenna is obtained by using successive exhaustive Boolean optimization. The design for the triple-port rectifier with dc combining is also provided and a prototype is demonstrated. The rectenna measurement demonstrates that the proposed triple-port pixel antenna has dc output power over double that of single-port-based antennas of similar size. The overall RF-to-dc efficiency of the multiport pixel rectenna is also evaluated and shown to be 19% when the total input RF power is -20 dBm. The effects of nonuniformity in the input RF power across antenna ports are also investigated.