Analysis, Design, and Implementation of a New Extremely Ultrathin 2-D-Isotropic Flexible Energy Harvester Using Symmetric Patch FSS

Electromagnetic (EM) energy exists far and wide in the environment and can be harnessed and transferred to the desired load(s). The researchers mostly designed and implemented the planar metasurface energy harvester (MEH) offering a restricted look-angle. In this article, we propose an extremely ultrathin 2-D-isotropic flexible MEH using multipolarized patch frequency selective surface. This MEH, which has a curved shape, enjoys a relatively constant performance over a huge range of oblique incident waves. The final structure can be prepared by a small slice of a cylinder. A classic model inspired from the dipole antenna concept is used for impedance matching. Theoretical analyses, design, and fabrication of the structure are presented using a deep subwavelength PCB substrate having a thickness of ~0.004λ
₀
. EM energy harvesting is analyzed with an equivalent circuit model. The experimental results are acceptably in agreement with the simulation results. The design can be scaled to different RF bands; however, to provide the required energy for Internet-of-Things (IoT) instruments, we have used WiFi as a crowded frequency band. The simulation efficiency of the flat style extremely ultrathin MEH (EMEH) for normal incidence (at 5.81 GHz) and 60° oblique angle incidence with transverse magnetic (TM) and transverse electric (TE) polarizations are 87.35%, 93.26%, and 64.42%, respectively. In addition, half power bandwidth (HPBW) for these situations is 6.97%, 8.86%, and 5.61%, respectively.