A 122 GHz Wirelessly Powered Active Reflector for D-Band Communications

This letter introduces an active reflector for D-band communication utilizing 122-GHz wireless power transfer (WPT). The reflector consists of rectifiers with an integrated low-pass filter (LPF), an IF-band power combining network, and an 1-port amplifier composed of a circulator and IF-band amplifiers. The proposed rectifier not only works as an RF-DC converter but also operates as a self-heterodyne mixer by using the 122 GHz WPT signal as a LO. Since the rectifier operates in a fully passive manner, it can simultaneously perform the upconversion and downconversion required for Tx and Rx operations. The IF signal obtained from downconversion is efficiently amplified and then reinput into the IF distributing network and rectifier after 1-port amplifier for upconversion and reflectively transmission in the specular direction. According to probe measurements, the rectifier achieves a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 12.2% with an input power of 9.3 dBm, and conversion gains of −15.9 and −17.7 dB for Tx and Rx modes, respectively. Additionally, the proposed rectifier supports a data rate of 48 Gb/s with a 64QAM modulation scheme and an 8-GHz bandwidth for both Tx and Rx.