A Rectenna Design With Quasi-Full Spatial Coverage Based on a Compact Dielectric Resonator Antenna

In this article, a rectenna with quasi-full spatial coverage is developed for RF power harvesting applications in the 5G context. The rectenna is designed based on a compact dielectric resonator antenna (DRA) that is composed of two laterally radiating elements with opposite half-space radiation. To demonstrate the rectenna’s performance, the proposed DRA is integrated with an efficient rectifier circuit based on the Schottky diode. The whole rectenna is verified at a 3.5 GHz-frequency band. The proposed DRA exhibits a measured impedance bandwidth of 19.43% (3.02–3.7 GHz), while maintaining a small size of
$0.57\lambda _{0} \times 0.57\lambda _{0} \times 0.13\lambda _{0}$
. At 3.5 GHz, the single element of the DRA can present measured half-power beamwidths of 200° and 156° in xy- and xz-plane, respectively. The rectifier circuit was also measured showing the highest efficiency of 76.6%. Meanwhile, it can maintain a high efficiency of >50% in the power range of 1–14 dBm over the entire frequency band of 3.4–3.6 GHz. Finally, the RF power collecting ability of the proposed rectenna is verified by rotating the rectenna in two different planes. The measured outputs of the rectenna are found to be consistent with expected values.