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This paper presents the design of a robust and large range RF energy harvester with a control loop. The harvester is based on an optimally mismatched antenna-rectifier interface that offers a large passive voltage boost to increase the sensitivity of the energy harvester while still extracting energy from the antenna. A control loop is proposed that maximizes the voltage on the storage capacitor by keeping the rectifier at resonance during charging continuously. The basic principle of this loop has been implemented and verified with simulations. The loop is able to optimize the antenna-electronics interface for a ±33% change in antenna reactance. A comparison with state-of-theart RF energy harvesters shows major improvements in rectified output voltage at power levels lower than -25 dBm.

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The aim of this brief is to point out the importance of co-designing electrically-short antenna-electronics interfaces as a way to improve the system performance. This can be achieved if both the antenna and electronic circuit designer have a common optimization target. In this brief, the co-design principles are presented for antenna systems in the receiving mode, which includes reception of wireless information and wireless power. A general interface analysis is carried out, suggesting that the choice of interface impedance plays a crucial role in the optimization procedure and depends on the preferred signal quantity of the electronic circuit. This allows to effectively improve design criteria such as noise figure, power efficiency and sensitivity without increasing the power consumption. Finally, two examples are treated to demonstrate the antenna-electronics co-design for the reception of wireless information (LNA) and wireless power (RF energy harvesting).

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