Energy Harvesting Rectenna Design for Enhanced Node Lifetime In WSNs

Abstract

With the rising popularity and advent of many services on Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), there is a compelling need to have energy-efficient solutions. The sensors and devices are powered by batteries whose life is limited, and at times it is impossible to replace the batteries, especially in remote applications. In such a scenario, Energy Harvesting (EH) stands as an undisputed candidate for enhancing the network lifetime. Radio Frequency (RF) energy is the most commonly available, ubiquitous, and reliable energy source among all the available energy sources. While RF signal carries both information and energy, EH is possible for long-distance and mobile environments. This work discusses initial research in the domain of EH in wireless networks via Radio Frequency (RF) signals. The paper presents an EH rectenna for energy harvesting over 2.45 GHz (Wi-Fi band). The receiving antenna is designed to pick up the radio signal in the RF range (2.45 GHz) from the free space. The four patch elements design has an antenna substrate made with RT with a dielectric constant of 2.2. The paper presents the simulation results of the basic parameters of the antenna, such as return loss, input impedance, bandwidth, gain, directivity, and efficiency. H-shaped slot antenna and modified H-shaped antenna (with circular slot) are designed with a gain of 8.24 dB and 8.32 dB, return loss of -10 dB and -16 dB, and bandwidth of 64.8 MHz and 868 MHz. The high gain, large bandwidth, properly matched impedance for minimum return loss, and high efficiency of the modified H-shaped patch antenna makes it eligible for energy harvesting.