Antenna technology in energy recovery systems

Nowadays, we observe dynamic technological progress. Often, due to the multitude of responsibilities, we are not aware of the conveniences that modern technology gives us. Modern man cannot imagine life without the possibility of using radio communication systems, including mobile telephony. Systems for obtaining electricity from phenomena occurring in the natural or industrial human environment are known under two names: energy harvesting and energy scavering. Both of these names refer to the same phenomena and methods. Sometimes in the literature the use of these names depends on the nature of the energy being processed. The name energy scavering is used when the type of energy source and its efficiency are not known, while energy harvesting is used when the source of potential energy is well described and regular.The dynamic development of applications requiring autonomous energy sources favors the rapid development of EH technology. The main area of application of EH is wireless sensor networks (WSN), where the energy demand of a single autonomous node depends on the current operating mode. In the standby state, the demand for electricity usually does not exceed several μW, and during measurement it does not exceed 100 μW. The greatest demand occurs during information transmission and ranges from 0.1 to 1 mW. Such energy demand values clearly indicate the possibility of using EH generators as additional power sources for smartphones.Another area of application of EH technology are systems for recharging batteries used in larger measurement systems where there are other traditional ways of charging batteries.One of the fundamental problems that arise when analyzing the possibility of using electromagnetic radiation as a source of recovered energy is the issue related to the assessment of the field strength distribution in the area of operation of the designed system. Knowledge of this distribution allows the designer to assess the degree of land cover. Therefore, every designer faces a serious problem of selecting an appropriate propagation model that will best describe the reality created by the designed system.An important aspect when analyzing the possibility of using electromagnetic radiation as a source of recovered energy is the proper selection of antenna technologies that can be used for the above application. In this chapter of the study, microstrip antennas are proposed for the above purpose.The work presents a designed measurement antenna that can operate from 500 MHz to 7.6 GHz, the operating bandwidth is 7.1 GHz,