A High-Density Array Antenna Using Narrow Elements for High-Power Rectenna DC Arrays

This paper proposes a high-density array antenna utilizing narrow antenna elements to achieve high-power rectenna DC arrays. A microstrip antenna employing a narrow antenna element has a lower gain than conventional microstrip antennas with a square patch. However, the narrow element allows us to arrange more elements in a unit area. As a result, the overall performance of the array antenna can be improved even though the performance of each element degrades. In this study, aperture ratios of the proposed array antenna and conventional array antenna using square elements are compared by simulation. Furthermore, a 9-element array antenna prototype is fabricated and experimentally evaluated. The aperture ratio of the proposed array antenna is improved by 20% compared to that of the conventional ones.