Balanced full-wave rectenna for electromagnetic energy harvesting

In this paper, we present a new approach to realizing full-wave rectification for Electromagnetic energy harvesting. The proposed rectenna structure consists of a full-wave rectifier that is differentially fed by two separate antennas. The resulting configuration allows the received power to be rectified and transferred into a DC load between two antennas, making it very easy to channel the harvested power in rectenna arrays. This concept is demonstrated by using an array of T-match dipole antennas optimized for 2.45 GHz. Experimental results showed that the proposed full-wave rectifier achieved 74% Radiation-to-DC conversion efficiency.