Development of Rectifier Performance Using Harmonic Balance Simulation for RF Energy Harvester Prototype

As the demand for Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology and Internet of Things (lOT) continue to grow, there is an increasing demand for sustainable and autonomous power solutions to energize low powered devices. Thus, the dependency on battery should be mitigated for a passive operation. This paper explores the concept of rectenna architecture-based radio frequency energy harvesters specifically designed for low power RFID application. The prototype harvests the abundance of Wi-Fi signals at frequency band of 2.4 GHz. A seven stages Cockroft-Walton rectifier with Schottky diode from HSMS286C and MA4E2054BI-1146T and low pass filter is designed. Initial Advance Design System (ADS) simulation results shows that 3.53 V can be harvested with 1.57 mm Rogers 5880 printed circuit board (PCB) substrate thickness under minimum power input of −10 dBm (0.1 mW). The results present the feasibility delivering a constant voltage of 1.5 V below −10 dBm to power a small device.