Multi-Band Metamaterial Absorbers to Efficient Energy Harvesters for Railway Applications

In this paper, a multi-band metamaterial energy harvester based on the concept of absorption is presented. The aim is to construct a high efficient and miniaturized design for applications at MHz frequencies. The design is composed of a coil spiral structure with a via connected from the metamaterial structure to a load resistance at the bottom end of the ground plane where the absorbed energy is dissipated. In terms of application prospects, unintentional signals have been shown to exist in the railway environment at a wide-band range of frequencies (10 kHz 1 GHz), where . Thus, it can be interesting to investigate the potential of metamaterial energy harvesting systems for railway applications. To date no mature technology has been implemented based on electromagnetic energy harvesting for railway applications in the frequency range between 300 MHz - 1 GHz. The metamaterial design of unit cell dimensions 80 mm× 80 mm, has shown a high level of absorption rate at multiple frequencies between 400 MHz - 1000 MHz up to 98% and the energy has been dissipated across a load resistance of 282 Ω with an efficiency up to 98% at specific frequencies.