A compact rectifier with wide dynamic range of input power based on two-port impedance compression matching network for RF energy harvesting

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a novel methodology for designing a rectifier with wide input power range (WIPR). In the proposed structure, a two-port resistance compression matching network (RCMN) is employed to extend the dynamic range of the input power. Generally, resistance compression network (RCN) is developed based on three-port network theory. This leads to the conventional RCN-based rectifier has two subrectifiers and arranged in a dual-branch topology. Compared with the conventional RCN-based rectifier, the proposed two-port RCMN-based rectifier not only has a single-branch topology but also can work without using an individual impedance matching network. Thus, a compact size and lower circuit complexity can be achieved. The closed-form design equations of the proposed two-port RCMN are designed. For validation, a 2.45 GHz WIPR-rectifier prototype is fabricated and tested. The experimental results show that the power convert efficiency (PCE) is higher than 50 % when the input power varies from -2.1 to 13.1 dBm. The peak PCE is 74.5 % with a 10.2 dBm input power. And its physical size is only 43 mm × 24 mm.