This paper addresses the microwave energy harvesting on board of geostationary satellites for health satellite monitoring. To prove the feasibility of such a concept, we investigated the electromagnetic environment existing on antenna panels. Based on established cartographic maps, three designs of rectennas are proposed. Measured DC powers ranging from 0.256 mW to 1.28 mW can be harvested for electric field levels ranging from 91 V/m to 121 V/m and by using very simple and compact designs. The harvesting structures consist of only one Schottky diode per rectenna and present a total surface of 2.4 cm 2. They are suitable for powering the new generation of ultralow power transceivers, thus enabling autonomous wireless power networks for satellite health monitoring.

An ultra-compact (2.5 cm 2) rectenna design based on an innovative topology using a coplanar stripline connected to a crossed dipoles antenna array is reported here. Experimental results in the K-band show that a DC power up to 0.9 mW can be harvested on a 0.3 kΩ load by using the proposed compact rectenna for incident power density of 1413 µW/cm 2. The targeted application for this rectenna is to power autonomous wireless sensors for satellite health monitoring.

This paper addresses an ultra-compact (2.8 cm 2) and wide bandwidth rectenna operating in the extended Kuband. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed rectenna can harvest a DC power ranging from 0.125 mW to 1.43 mW for frequencies between 14.5 GHz to 19.5 GHz and for resistive loads between 250 Ω and 4 kΩ. A maximum conversion efficiency of 55.3 % is obtained at 16.05 GHz for an incident power density around of 1.26 mW/cm 2. It is the first time, to the authors' knowledge, that such high harvesting performances are obtained using an ultra-compact Ku-band rectenna.

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This reported work addresses microwave energy harvesting for powering wireless sensors onboard brodcasting geostationary satellites. The electromagnetic environment existing on such satellites is first investigated. Experimental results in K-band demonstrate for the first time the feasibility of such energy harvesting for powering autonomous wireless sensors used to monitor the satellite health.