RF Energy Harvesting Rectenna for Wearable Applications

Abstract

Radio Frequency (RF) energy harvesting is a promising technology for powering wireless sensor network devices that require a minimal amount of power to function. Many individuals use wearable devices, but the batteries they require are a significant stumbling block. To address this issue, an energy harvesting system operating at 2.45GHz (ISM band) is proposed to eliminate the need for batteries and so as to improve system portability. The antenna and the rectifier circuit which converts RF power into DC signal is known as rectenna. The proposed rectenna is compact in size and measures 30 × 33 × 1 mm ³ in total. This proposed rectifier performs well with a conversion efficiency of 72% at the designed frequency of 2.45 GHz for use with the wearable low power devices in Wireless Body Area Networks (WBAN) applications.