A 2.45-GHz Frugal Dumbbell-Shaped Rectenna Built on Recyclable Substrates

摘要

Biodegradable materials have amassed attention for frugal green electronics applications to better assist underserved communities. In this paper, we design a frugal radio frequency (RF) energy harvesting system as a low-cost power supply for low-power on-body sensors. The system involves a loaded dumbbell antenna integrated with a single diode rectifier. The dumbbell antenna is outfitted with loaded rings and a ground plane spaced A/4 away (viz. 2.45GHz). Indeed, both were fabricated using cardboard substrate and copper tape as a conductor. The measurements suggested that the rectenna exhibited an excellent RF performance as well as a good RF-to-DC conversion. That is, excellent S11of less than −20 dB and a realized gain of 9 dBi and $15mu W mathrm{for} 25mu W/cm^{2}$ RF power density, which is the equivalent of a figure-of-merit (EFOM) of 11.7 dB. This design is very attractive due to the fact it can be used in rural area and the materials used to assemble the device can be later recycled for other purposes.