Design and Evaluation of 1.8 GHZ Broadband Rectenna for Radio Frequency Energy Harvesting Ifeagwu E.N.

A rectenna is a special type of receiving antenna that is used for converting electromagnetic energy into direct current. They are used in wireless power transmission systems that transmit power by radio waves. Rectenna is a device that is used to activate low-power devices without the use of wires. A sensing antenna plus a rectifier make up the majority of a rectenna. For autonomous applications such as sensors, energy harvesting technologies are essential because a long-term power source from a battery is not viable. An energy harvester is a device that turns various sources of renewable energy into electricity. It can be used to completely or partially replace the batteries in certain low-energy microsystems. Therefore, the goal of this project is to harness electromagnetic waves to direct current in order to charge a mobile phone. The objectives of this project are to design the antenna, matching network and the rectifier using CST and ADS software. respectively and construct a rectenna. The work proposed is to realize harvesting at typical ambient radio frequency power levels prevalent in urban areas. The design calculations were done in order to simulate the antenna and get our results. An antenna, an impedance-matching network, and a rectifier are included to achieve this result. A prototype is created, constructed and tested. The results showed graphs as well as tables. In the frequency range of 1.8GHz, we obtained a directivity of 5.831dBi, a gain of 5.03dB and return loss of -15.49984dB.