The widespread use of WiFi in the 2.4-GHz ISM band creates the potential for RF powering using WiFi radios. This paper presents the design of a cm-scale RF-energy harvester including antenna, rectifier, and dc-dc boost converter for RF powering in the 2.4-GHz ISM band. The rectifier and boost converter are designed while considering cold-start operation and nanowatt-scale available power from the rectifier for RF incident power2while the antenna occupies 1.27 cm2. The proposed design optimization approach leads to a sensitivity of -33 dBm in cold start and -36 dBm in the primary mode for 1-V output, translating to ~1.4x and ~2x improvement in range compared to prior art. Measurements using a commercial WiFi TX demonstrate the ranges of up to 1.25 m for 14-dBm output power with 1.3% TX duty-cycling in WiFi access-point mode, demonstrating the feasibility of powering sensors from RF power beacons in the 2.4-GHz ISM band as well as from background WiFi transmissions.
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Sadagopan et al. (2018) studied this question.
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