Energy Harvesting & Autonomous Energy Systems: A Proposal for RF Energy Harvesting

The necessity for permanent use of electrical and electronic devices has generated a greater demand for electricity along with more efficient transmission techniques. Energy from the environment can be radio frequency (RF) signals, friction, solar, thermal, or vibration. The increase in autonomous energy devices and sensors depends on the evolution of Energy Harvesting (EH) techniques. In recent years, many self-developed energy devices have been deployed in various types of systems. With the continuous progress of technology, such autonomous devices accomplish more and more challenging operations (e.g., in agriculture or health care), which can be manufactured by consuming only a few uW or even more pW of power. The capacity to function with minimal power consumption is very important in modern electronics design. We present a rectifier circuit for radio frequency (RF) energy harvesting systems that works at 5 and 5.8 GHz. The proposed circuit provides a high PCE (power conversion efficiency) of 64.56% for an input power equal to 10 dBm.