Design of a high-efficiency rectenna for 1.575 GHz wireless low power transmission

A 1.575 GHz rectenna has been developed for low input power operation. The rectenna incorporates a high efficiency, electrically small, metamaterial-inspired near field resonant parasitic antenna, and a Schottky diode that has a low built-in voltage, and a resistor as the load. The rectenna was analyzed with the Harmonic Balance method provided by the Advanced Design System (ADS). The measurement results show that the output efficiency of the rectenna with the resistive load is 34.1% and the voltage across the resistor is 0.73 V when the power delivered to the antenna is 1.0 mW (0.0 dBm). The predicted and measured results are in reasonable agreement.