Design of a Dual-Band Polarization-Reconfigurable Rectenna for Radio Frequency Energy Harvesting

In this letter, a dual-band polarization-reconfigurable (DBPR) rectenna is proposed for radio frequency energy harvesting (RFEH). This rectenna consists of a dual-band (2.4 GHz and 5.8 GHz) polarization-configurable antenna and a dual-band rectifier. For the radiating antenna element, its dual-band characteristic is achieved by adding short-circuit probes to stimulate two resonant modes (TM10 and TM30). Besides, we use a dual-band branch-line coupler and six p-i-n diodes as the antenna's feeding network. This antenna can be utilized to receive linear polarization, left-hand circular polarization, and right-hand circular polarization waves through turning the p-i-n diodes <sc xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">on</small> or <sc xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">off</small>. For validation, a prototype is fabricated and measured. The measured peak gain of the antenna at 2.4 GHz and 5.8 GHz are 5.71 dBi and 6.9 dBi, respectively. In addition, at 2.4 GHz and 5.8 GHz, the rectenna achieves a 54<inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\%$</tex-math></inline-formula> and a 44.4<inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\%$</tex-math></inline-formula> peak power conversion efficiency. The designed rectenna can be used to construct a dual-band RFEH system with various polarization receiving capability.