IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 18, NO.

12, DECEMBER 2019 2637

Highly Efficient 2.4 and 5.8 GHz Dual-Band

Rectenna for Energy Harvesting Applications
Kapil Bhatt , Student Member, IEEE, Sandeep Kumar , Student Member, IEEE,
Pramod Kumar , Student Member, IEEE, and Chandra Charu Tripathi , Senior Member, IEEE

Abstract—In this letter, highly efficient dual-band rectenna

at 2.4 and 5.8 GHz for energy harvesting is presented. A new
sickle-shaped antenna is designed to operate at both frequencies.
Rectenna shows the maximum RF–DC conversion efficiency of
63% and 54.8% at 2.4 and 5.8 GHz, respectively. The impact of
matching network and output filter on RF–DC conversion effi-
ciency at both frequencies is analyzed. The output dc voltage of
3 and 2.6 V is measured for 2.4 and 5.8 GHz correspondingly at
a 600 Ω load resistance. The rectenna can be utilized for various
low-power applications.
Index Terms—Dual-band, rectenna, RF–DC conversion
efficiency, Schottky diode, sickle-shaped antenna.
I. INTRODUCTION
NERGY harvesting is the process of capturing and con-
E verting the ambient electromagnetic (EM) energy to us-
able electrical energy. There are several EM energy sources
available around us such as solar radiations [1] and wasted
RF signals sources like Wi-Fi router, cordless phone, Bluetooth
earpiece, wireless mouse, mobile towers, etc. All the time EM
energy is continuously radiating [2] from these devices. Even
though the power accessible through these sources is small (few
microwatts), it is adequate for various low-power applications
such as RFID systems, calculator displays, smartwatch, mobile
phones, etc. [3]–[6].
The RF energy is readily available through various wireless
devices centered at 2.4 and 5.8 GHz and used for industrial,
scientific, and medical applications. The application of rectenna
for energy harvesting around these frequency bands has been
reported separately [7]–[9]. Additionally, a few works have
reported energy harvesting at both frequency bands [10]–[14].
However, the present configuration has merits of small size [10],
[11], [13], optimized efficiency [13], [15], and lower substrate
cost [9]–[11], [18].
This letter presents the simulation, fabrication, and character-
ization of the dual-band rectenna system, which includes a novel
sickle-shaped antenna and rectifier circuit operating at 2.4 and
5.8 GHz frequency, respectively. Schottky diode (HSMS-2860)
has been used for rectification, and the impact of matching
Manuscript received August 10, 2019; revised September 18, 2019 and
October 5, 2019; accepted October 8, 2019. Date of publication October 11,
2019; date of current version December 19, 2019. (Corresponding author:
Kapil Bhatt.)
The authors are with the RF and Flexible Microelectronics Research Labora-
tory, University Institute of Engineering and Technology, Kurukshetra Univer-
sity, Kurukshetra 136119, India (e-mail: kapilbhatt@ieee.org; sk.kd@ieee.org;
mr.pramod.kumar@ieee.org; cctripathi@ieee.org).
This article has supplementary downloadable material available at
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org, provided by the authors.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/LAWP.2019.2946911
Fig. 1. (a) Schematic diagram. (b) Fabricated proposed rectenna system (l ×
w = 80 × 48 mm2 ). (c) Independent antenna and rectifier structure for testing
purpose.
network, output filter, and load resistance on RF–DC conversion
efficiency is investigated.
II. RECTENNA DESIGN
A rectenna is a combination of a rectifier circuit and an antenna
[15], which is used to convert the incoming radiations into the
usable dc output. The schematic and fabricated structure of the
proposed rectenna is shown in Fig. 1(a) and (b). Testing of an
antenna and rectifier structure was done individually as shown in
Fig. 1(c). The rectenna includes an antenna, which receives RF
power at 2.4 and 5.8 GHz and feeds it to the Schottky diode. For
maximum power to be transferred from an antenna to a rectifier,
a matching network is used, which is optimized for both the
frequencies (2.4 and 5.8 GHz). The output filter is used to prevent
unwanted harmonics generated by diode, and capacitor filter is
used to filter out the ac component in the output signal. To get
the dc output, a resistive load is finally attached. The rectenna
system is fabricated on a low-cost FR4 substrate with εr = 4.4,
thickness (h) = 1.6 mm, and tan δ = 0.022.
A. Antenna Design
The antenna is designed for 50 Ω characteristic input
impedance and matched to the rectifier. The proposed sickle-
shaped antenna, shown in Fig. 2(a), is optimized in ANSYS
High-Frequency Structure Simulator. The sickle shape has
simple and easy-to-fabricate structure with the merits of
a longer path for the radiating current and lower impedance
bandwidth, as reported in the literature [19], [20]. By controlling
the antenna dimensions, namely “a” to “d” as shown in Fig. 2(a),
the resonant frequencies of interest were obtained along with
resonance at 4 GHz.
As shown in Fig. 2(b), the E-plane is bidirectional, and
H-plane is nearly omnidirectional at 2.4 GHz. For 5.8 GHz,

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2638 IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 18, NO. 12, DECEMBER 2019

Fig. 2. (a) Layout of proposed antenna, (b) antenna radiation pattern (φ = 0 for H-plane and φ = 90° for E-plane) at 2.4 GHz (left) and (c) 5.8 GHz (right).

Fig. 3. (a) Measured and simulated reflection coefficient (S11) with inset showing the fabricated antenna. (b) Simulated gain versus frequency plot of antenna at
2.4 GHz and (c) 5.8 GHz.

Fig. 4. Antenna current density distribution at (a) 2.4 GHz and (b) 5.8 GHz.

the maximum value of gain is radiating from −60° to −100°

as shown in Fig. 2(c). The S11 parameters of the simulated and
fabricated antenna are better than −19 and −15 dB at 2.4 and
5.8 GHz, respectively [see Fig. 3(a)]. At 2.4 and 5.8 GHz, the
maximum gain levels achieved are 1.48 and 3.83 dBi, respec-
tively, as shown in Fig. 3(b) and (c).
Distribution of current density along the patch antenna at
2.4 and 5.8 GHz is shown in Fig. 4(a) and (b), respectively.
The antenna gives maximum current density at 2.4 GHz and
decreases at 5.8 GHz due to the antenna structure resonant modes
and input impedance mismatch.
However, for both frequencies, the maximum concentration
of received RF power is in the antenna feeding element.
B. Rectifier Design
In this part, a half-wave rectifier is designed and optimized
at operating frequencies. For 10 mW of the applied input RF
Fig. 5. Rectifier design layout.
power, the input impedance is analyzed using harmonic bal-
ance simulation in Advanced Design System (ADS) software.
The rectifier consists of a matching network, Schottky diode,
and output filter. The layout of the proposed rectifier design
is shown in Fig. 5. The overall efficiency of the rectifier de-
pends upon the performance parameters of the diode used for
rectification.
The higher value of series resistance (Rs ) and zero-bias-
junction capacitance (Cj0 ) of the diode degrade the overall
power conversion efficiency [16]. Furthermore, the diode must
have high voltage sensitivity at lower input power for en-
ergy harvesting applications. Therefore, Broadcom HSMS-2860
Schottky diode (RS components, India) has been selected with
Rs = 6 Ω and Cj0 = 0.18 pF with detection sensitivity up to
35 mV/μW at 2.45 GHz and up to 25 mV/μW at 5.8 GHz.

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BHATT et al.: HIGHLY EFFICIENT 2.4 AND 5.8 GHz DUAL-BAND RECTENNA FOR ENERGY HARVESTING APPLICATIONS 2639

Fig. 7. Effect of a matching network on the performance of a rectenna at (a) 2.4 GHz and (b) 5.8 GHz.

TABLE I
EFFECT OF MATCHING NETWORK AND OUTPUT FILTER
ON RECTENNA EFFICIENCY

Fig. 6. Comparison of diode dc models.

The dc characteristics of diode supplied by the vendor are

compared to the SPICE model of Schottky diode available in
ADS software. It is depicted from Fig. 6 that dc characteristics
of the diode match perfectly to the SPICE model.
To ensure the accurate matching of an antenna output to the
diode, the matching network has been designed and optimized.
Additionally, the dimensional parameters of the output filter Fig. 8. Rectenna measurement setup.
have been optimized to attain the maximum conversion effi-
ciency at dual frequencies. The effect of the matching network
and output filter on the performance of the rectenna system was
analyzed in the ADS software using an optimization and tuning proposed rectenna performs with its maximum capacity. Finally,
controller. As shown in Fig. 7, without a matching network, the the output filter is terminated by a capacitor filter to remove the
output load voltage is low at both the frequencies, and hence, higher order harmonics and ripples. The optimum value of the
resulted in overall decreased RF–DC conversion efficiency. Dur- load resistor and capacitor were selected as 600 Ω and 680 pF,
ing the analysis, load output voltage without matching was 2.17 respectively.
and 2.29 V at 2.4 and 5.8 GHz, respectively, while with matching
network it increases and becomes 2.62 and 2.46 V. III. RECTENNA MEASUREMENT
The detailed impact of a matching network and an output The signal generator has been used as a source and rectified;
filter on RF–DC conversion efficiency at dual frequencies has the dc output of the device under test was analyzed on an
been analyzed and is summarized in Table I. The table shows oscilloscope for the rectifier network (as shown in Fig. 8). A
the following: Efficiency (00): conversion efficiency without a wideband horn antenna with a linearly polarized incident wave
matching network and an output filter; Efficiency (01): con- has been used for testing the sickle-shaped antenna.
version efficiency with an output filter only; Efficiency (10): By measuring the voltage across the load resistance, the
conversion efficiency with a matching network only; Efficiency efficiency is calculated as
(11): conversion efficiency with a matching network and an  2 
output filter. It is clear that without a matching network or V 1
the output filter, the efficiency degrades, and at logic (11), the ηRF−DC (%) = load ∗ 100. (1)
Rload Pin

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2640
Fig. 9. Output load versus efficiency at 2.4 and 5.8 GHz.
Fig. 10. Simulated and measured efficiency of a rectenna as a function of input
power at 2.4 and 5.8 GHz.
Here η RF–DC is the RF-to-DC conversion efficiency, Vload is
the output dc voltage across the load resistance (Rload ), and Pin
is the RF input power in milliwatt.
The rectenna has been optimized for maximum conversion
efficiency as a function of load resistance. Fig. 9 shows the
variation of efficiency as a function of load resistance. For
10 mW input power initially, the efficiency increases with load
and decreases at higher values beyond 700 Ω. Moreover, the
average efficiency is above 45% for a varying load of 200—
1200 Ω for both the frequencies. It is observed that the rectenna
can efficiently handle the load around 600 Ω for both the input
signals, i.e., 2.4 and 5.8 GHz frequency.
The simulated and measured efficiency is presented in ac-
cordance with [8]–[10], [13], [16], and [17]. The rectenna
performance as a function of the input power level at 2.4 and
5.8 GHz frequency with 600 Ω load is shown in Fig. 10. At
17 mW, the simulated value of maximum efficiency is observed
as 67.62% (at 2.4 GHz) and 59.62% (at 5.8 GHz), while the
measured value of the efficiency is 63% and 54.8% at 2.4 and
5.8 GHz, respectively. The lower efficiency of the fabricated
rectenna may be because of the losses that occur due to the
diode, dielectric losses, metallic losses, fabrication errors, and
loss of power at connectors. The measured value of the rectenna
efficiency and output voltage as a function of the input power for
2.4 and 5.8 GHz is shown in Fig. 11, where the output voltage
is increased due to increased input power; however, there is a
negligible increment in efficiency after achieving its maximum
value.
In this work, significant RF–DC conversion efficiency at
two different frequencies has been achieved. Fig. 12 shows a
comparison of present work and previous studies on the rectenna,
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IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 18, NO. 12, DECEMBER 2019
Fig. 11. Rectenna measured efficiency with corresponding output voltage as
a function of input power at 2.4 and 5.8 GHz.
Fig. 12. Comparison of state-of-the-art designs of multiband rectenna circuits
[7]–[10], [12], [13], [17], [18].
which performed rectification at different frequency bands. The
proposed design has merits of relatively high efficiency [13],
[15] at dual frequencies with comparative size [9]–[11], [13]
and lower substrate cost [9]–[11], [18].
IV. CONCLUSION
A highly efficient dual-band rectenna operating, respectively,
at 2.4 and 5.8 GHz for energy harvesting is presented. At
17 mW input RF power, the rectenna shows the maximum
RF–DC conversion efficiency of 63% and 54.8% at 2.4 and
5.8 GHz, respectively, thanks to a new sickle-shaped antenna that
enabled the rectenna to operate for the dual bands of frequency.
The presented rectenna can be used for low-power devices
such as RFID tags, calculator displays, smartwatch, and mobile
phones.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors are thankful to G. Saini for providing the test-
ing facility for the device at the National Institute of Techni-
cal Teachers Training and Research (NITTTR), Antenna Lab,
Chandigarh, India. The authors extend thanks to Dr. S. Sharma,
Assistant Professor, U.I.E.T., M.D.U. Rohtak, India; Dr. D.
Sood, Assistant Professor, U.I.E.T., Kurukshetra University,
Kurukshetra, India; M. Kumar, Ph.D. scholar, IIT Ropar, India;
and D. Singh Arya, Ph.D. scholar, CARE, IIT Delhi, India, for
various technical discussions.
BHATT et al.: HIGHLY EFFICIENT 2.4 AND 5.8 GHz DUAL-BAND RECTENNA FOR ENERGY HARVESTING APPLICATIONS
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