Wi-Fi energy harvesting system using body-worn antennas

This paper presents the design of a body-worn ambient RF energy harvesting system. The proposed system harvests freely available RF energy in an office environment using the 2.45-GHz WLAN band and converts it to usable DC power. To capture sufficient ambient RF energy, multiple body-worn embroidered textile antennas are conformally woven into a daily garment. A RF-to-DC rectifier circuit is also designed and optimized for operation at the WLAN band. Experimental tests are carried out to evaluate the average DC power that can be harvested in an office environment where significant wireless data traffic exists. These measurements will demonstrate the capability of the proposed body-worn energy harvester in supplying low-power electronics.