An Optimized 2.4GHz RF Energy Harvester for Energizing Low-Power Wireless Sensor Platforms

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

The lifetime of battery-operated sensor platforms (i.e., sensor nodes) is a critical issue. The replacement of their batteries is quite a challenging task if these platforms are deployed for detecting events in inaccessible geographical areas (e.g., forest). This paper describes an optimized RF energy harvester/scavenger (consisting of an antenna, impedance matching circuit and rectifier) for energizing low-power sensor platforms (electronic systems). Few nonmatched rectifiers (using HSMS-285X Schottky diodes) are fabricated to characterize the input impedance for different sets of parameters. After characterization a proper impedance matching circuit is integrated for the maximum power transfer from antenna to rectifier. It is shown that a single stage of RF rectifier is enough to produce output voltage of 1.8[Formula: see text]V. Very few realizations of RF energy harvester are reported in the literature under 2.4[Formula: see text]GHz ISM band category. Furthermore, high-gain microstrip patch array antennas are fabricated to capture the maximum power from the surroundings. The maximum harvesting range of 0.92[Formula: see text]m is obtained at 27[Formula: see text]dBm transmitting power level.