Theoretical Analysis of Beam-Steerable, Broadside-Radiating Huygens Dipole Antenna Arrays and Experimental Verification of an Ultrathin Prototype for Wirelessly Powered IoT Applications

Abstract

The theoretical analysis of beam-steerable, broadside-radiating Huygens dipole antenna arrays (HDAAs) is presented. Linear HDAAs with different numbers of elements are investigated and compared with full-wave simulations. Their attractive performance characteristics for wirelessly powered IoT applications are emphasized. Each Huygens dipole antenna (HDA) is an electrically small, linearly polarized, efficient, unidirectional radiating element. Linear HDAAs are confirmed to achieve high directivity beams in one principle plane and significantly broad beamwidths in the orthogonal principle plane. Very stable gain variation when their main beam is steered is demonstrated. A practical beam-steerable, broadside-radiating, linear HDAA is developed that employs an experimentallyverified HDA and is facilitated by a microstrip power-divider feed network. The entire HDAA design is ultrathin (λ0/240.87), lying only on a single piece Rogers Duroid TM 5880 copper-clad substrate. A proof-of-concept 3-element HDAA prototype excited with a 3×3 Butler matrix centered at 2.45 GHz was designed, fabricated and measured. The measured results, in very good agreement with their simulated values, demonstrate the efficacy of the linear HDAA designs and their potential usefulness for wireless power transfer (WPT) systems dedicated to emerging IoT applications that require power be directed towards terminals in multiple specified directions with broad area coverage at each one.

Mixtures of Multipoles—Should They Be in Your EM Toolbox?

“…Assume their amplitudes are a balanced pair, i.e., with I e e = I 0 and I m m = η I 0 . In their far field, their electric fields are then [166]:…”

“…They are efficient and are readily matched to the specific impedance of a source or device such as a rectifying circuit or sensor. Examples include basic passive and active; multi-band and multi-functional; frequency-agile and other reconfigurable feature systems [19], [166], [206]- [224]. As examples of electrically small antennas, many of these systems have been recently reviewed [225].…”

Internet of Things Networks: Enabling Simultaneous Wireless Information and Power Transfer

“…These are one form of cost-effective implementation of beamforming on a PCB substrate, while benefiting from compact size. In [24], the authors introduced practical application examples of such beamformers for broadcasting wireless power to multiple IoT devices that are remotely located. The array broadcasts wireless power to multiple IoT targets Analog beamformers can be used to enhance the end-to-end power transfer efficiency from the transmitter to the receiver.…”