Antennas and RF energy-harvesting devices for Office or Domestic environments

Abstract

The research work that is to be presented is basedon the study and designing of a rectenna systemfor wireless RF energy harvesting for domestic or indoor environments. An introduction to the essentialprerequisites have been presented prior to the work along with the literature survey that went in and thus, the main research work was presented along with the different tests and the various results from both simulations as well as results.The main research work is divided into two parts. The first part investigates antennas for energy harvesting techniques and wireless indoor power reception from a transmitting RF power source. The antennas are intended to work as the receptor of the power signals for the available ambient RF signals.At the WiFi frequency of 2.4 GHz, antennas such as slot antennas, dipole antennas and Ultra-Wide-Band antennas were put up against each other in a comparative analysis based on simulation in CST microwave studio as well as experimentation with their various types to find the most suitable one for energy harvesting purposes. Real-time RF field-measurement tests were conducted using antennas to analyse their performances as well as evaluating the amount of available RF-power in a common domestic environment.The second part of the work focuseson the designing of the equivalent circuit design of the antenna and creating of the matching network and rectifier. The novel technique of equivalent antenna-circuit was implemented in the simulation in the Agilent ADS software of microstrip-rectifiers and the matching network design to create a chip that carried the microstrips and the matching network as well as the filters. An analytical field-test was conducted using the chip with the antennas to determine the amount of power than can be harnessed by the rectenna system