Rectenna Design and Development Strategies for Wireless Applications: A review

In this article, a comprehensive review specifically on the applications of rectennas for different wireless systems has been presented. Rectenna systems are used to convert radio-frequency (RF) energy into dc signals. Attracting ever-increasing interest among researchers, the rectenna has occupied a unique position in RF and microwave engineering systems. During the last four decades, the research on rectenna design has been focused on improving the power conversion efficiency (PCE) and compatibility while reducing the design complexity as well. This review article summarizes the overall rectenna research carried out for different applications, viz., wireless power transmission (WPT), wireless sensor networks (WSNs), solar power transmission (SPT), medical implants, and wireless energy-harvesting (WEH) systems. Such a review article has rarely been proposed in the open literature to the best of the authors’ knowledge. The main objectives of the article are to 1) accommodate the key design requirements of the rectenna, 2) study the potential application of rectennas and their possible configurations to achieve desired performance characteristics, and 3) to present a comparative analysis of the performance parameters of the different reported works.