Millimeter-Wave Power Harvesting: A Review

Abstract

The broad spectrum available at millimeter-wave (mmWave) bands has attracted significant interest for a breadth of applications, with 5G communications being the main commercial drive for mmWave networks. Wireless power transmission and harvesting at mmWave bands have attracted significant attention due to the potential for minimizing the harvesting antenna size, allowing for more compact rectennas. For a fixed antenna size, the received power increases with frequency. Nevertheless, several challenges lie in realizing high efficiency antennas and rectifiers at mmWave bands. This paper reviews the recent advances in mmWave rectenna design at a component-and system-level. Low-cost antennas and components for mmWave power harvesting, such as high efficiency scalable rectifiers on polymers and high radiation efficiency antennas on textiles, are reviewed. Both the antenna and rectifier can be realized using low-cost fabrication methods such as additively-manufactured circuits and packages, in addition to digital integrated circuits (ICs) for the rectifiers. Finally, this paper provides an overview of future antenna design challenges and research directions for mmWave power harvesting.

Dispenser Printed Flexible Rectenna for Dual-ISM Band High-Efficiency Supercapacitor Charging

“…Wireless power transmission (WPT) in the ultra high frequency (UHF) license-free bands is increasingly seen as a method to power battery-less Internet of Things (IoT) devices [1]. Simple and low-cost rectennas, from UHF to mmWave bands [2], enable more IoT devices to benefit from WPT and ambient radio frequency energy harvesting (RFEH). Compared to ambient RFEH from sources such as GSM or Wi-Fi networks, WPT is more predictable and can deliver power directly to the target device without wasting power omnidirectionally [3].…”

“…Realizing rectennas using additive manufacturing has attracted significant interest due to the potential for reducing the rectenna's cost [8], and for enabling rectennas on a variety of substrates. 2.4 GHz [9], sub-1 GHz [10], [11], and millimeterwave [2], [12] rectennas have been realized using directwrite inkjet and dispenser printing. In [11], where the printed rectenna was used to power a sensor node, the DC power management circuity, owing to its high-complexity, was integrated on a rigid PCB housing multiple lumped components.…”

Rectifier Integrated Multibeam Luneburg Lens Employing Artificial Dielectric as a Wireless Power Transfer Medium at Mm Wave Band

“…The Gallium Arsenide (GaAs) Schottky diodes are preferred over Silicon (Si) schottky diodes for the frequencies above 20 GHz as the junction cutoff frequencies of Si-based diodes, which is around 20 GHz, are further reduced due to the packaging parasitics above 20 GHz. For GaAs diodes, the typical cutoff frequency is above 100 GHz; thus, variation in the cutoff frequency does not have an impact when the diode is used at 24 GHz [30]. For the present application, the Schottky diode selected is MA4E-1317 by MACOM.…”

“…It can be inferred from the Frii's transmission equation [29] that a higher aperture area of the receiving antenna results in a higher power to be captured by the antenna, which contributes to the increase in the WPT efficiency [30]. Hence it is desirable that the antennas designed for the WPT applications at higher frequencies have a larger area of the aperture and hence the directivity.…”

Triple-Band Single-Layer Rectenna for Outdoor RF Energy Harvesting Applications

“…The microstrip patch antenna has been widely used as an RF energy harvester in various applications and for different frequency bands of operation [ 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 ]. It exhibits several comparative advantages, such as ease of fabrication, relatively low cost, small physical size compared to the wavelength of the operating frequency, and medium complexity [ 10 , 11 , 12 ]. Therefore, it has been established as an attractive technique for RF EH applications [ 13 ].…”