Planar Rectennas for 2.45GHz Wireless Power Transfer Jouko Heikkinen, Pekka Salonen and Markku Kivikoski ‘Tampere University of Technology Electronics Laboratory ‘Tel #358-3-365 3384, Fax: #3583365 2620, email joukoh@ele tut. Abstract Three planar retennas frecifiing antennas) on different PCB materials have been designed. Patch antennas wore designed with a MOM (Method of Momenis)-based simultor while in RF to DC conversion circuits microstrip and discrete recifir diode modele were ullzed in circuit simulations, The goal was to achieve maxim antenna and conversion efficiency atthe desired reception power level. 809% antenna eficiency and 7026 conversion efficiency ‘was achieved in simulations. Th terms or achieving a sufiien reception power level were considered and com pared tothe performance of the designed antennas. The accuracy requirements for the realization ofthese rectenna Structures were also defined withthe ald of botk simulation and measurement results 1. Introduction ‘As operating voltages of semiconductor devices are fast ‘dropping towards 1V and the mos of this development is driven by the need of low-power components for portable wireles applications, the interest in utilization Of RF or microwave power for the operation of these ‘devices has increased. Some RFID (Radio Frequency entiation) and telemetry applications [1] (2] have already utilized this “power source”. Because mere ‘Ree-space attenuation of a microwave-fequency eld ‘antenna and RF to DC conversion per= tt be optimized in order 10 gain useful power levels. Some earlier studies indicate that conver- sion efficiencies up t0 80% can be achieved at GHz is quite hi formance fequencice(3}(4) ‘Taree designs of planar rectonns structures are pre- sented inthis paper. The comparison is made between, the three different materials on which the antennas and ‘conversion cirsuits have been designed, In the next sues concerning both antenna and ret circuit design for wireless power transfer are addressed ‘and design are described. Simulation and measurement ‘esuli are then given and discussed. Finally, some con- ‘usions are made and future actions are given, 2, Power transfer and RF to DC conversion Power transfer in fee space is commonly characterized with Fris power transmission equation [5], 0-7803-6267-5/00/$10.00 ©2000 IEEE. Which relates the transmitted and received power (Pr and P,, respectively) to antenna gains (G, and G), wavelength (2) and transfer distance (A) Assuming unity gain antennas, the theoretical atenua- tion (PJP) ata distance of 2 meters at 2.4SGHz is ap proximately 464B. Considering 20d8m. transmited ower (generally the maximum permitted radited power in 2 4SGH2 ISM band for RFID applications), in ‘order to achieve a practical reception power level of (045m, atleast 264B overall antenna gain (GG) is re- wired 2.1. Antenna Many antennas interact with objects that are placed close to them and must therefore be mounted at 2 suffi- cient distance ftom walls of atthe top of masts, Also, ‘many antennas tend tobe perturbed when placed in the close vicinity of anther antenna In rather sharp con- ‘east, microstrip antennas ee somewhat shielded by the presence ofa ground plane, so whatever is located in the back of them does not significantly affect thei op- cation, This means, in particular, that microsipanten- ‘as canbe mounted diectly on the wall of buildings or ‘on the top surface of an abject and are thus less con- spievous than other antennas Microstrip antennas are planar and thus they can be manufactured on a printed circuit board, This makes them a5 an attractive type of antenna due to ther low ost, conformability and ease of manufacture, The pla- nar sructure is very suitable for retenns applications because planar antennas are thin. Patch antennas are a widely studied group of microstip antennas [6]. Patch antennas provide an easy and cheap way of manuf turing a good antenna Manufacturing process is the same a8 for printed eieuit boards and acully patches tre usally printed on a circuit board. The patch ge- ‘metry may vary from rectangular to circular or what-ever shape depending on the application requiements Patch antennas have the largest gain compared to di- pole and pias The simplest way to feed a patch antenna isto connect ‘a microstrip line diecly tothe edge of the path, with both elements located on te same substrate [7] For the proposed rectenna element the feedlne is connected to fhe patch within an inset cut inthe patch. It was found experimentally that cutting such an inset does not sig- nificandy affect the resonant frequency but that it modi- fies the input impedance. By properly selecting the depth ofthe inset, the matching to the transmission fine ean be done without any additional matching elements Patch antennas were designed for thee different printed circuit board materials listed in Table 1, The shown relative dielectric constant and loss tangent values for FRe¢ are values commonly found in literature since ac- ‘curate specifications forthe used board material were not available, RT 6010 and RT $870 are low-los high= frequency Duroids® by Rogers. Antenna layouts ae represented in Figure I were also the rectifier circuits are shown, Table + Subsea properties and antenna dimension. Maternal] ree [RT 6010] RTS870 Property le 45 | 102 [235 jan o.018 | 00023 | 0002 [Diet thick (mij [ 62 so |_s [patch size (mil) [1140e1140] 7603760 [1550x1550 A Figure 1 Rectonna layouts for FR4 (upper), RT 6010 ower lef) and RT 5870 ower hi). The rectangular contours ep- resent he sie of he ground plane, which extends TOOmis ‘over tives sides and 350ml over fee sd ofthe pach 64 2.2. Rectifier ‘The RF to DC conversion circuit is formed of HP HSMS-2852 zero-bias Shotky detector diode pai, a capacitor (Gets as both DC power storage and RF by- pass capacitor) and a load resistor, a5 can be seen in Figure |. Zero-bins diodes are needed because no ex- temal bias is available. These diodes have relatively low barier height (high sateration current) which, compared to externally biased detector diodes, ests in {higher output voltage at Tow power levels A major Arawhack is higher series resistance causing higher re~ Sinve losis, The diodes in HSMS-2852 are connected as a voltage doubler citcut enabling @ higher output DC. voltage The diode pair is matched to the antenna impedance (500) by a series transmission lie and an open stub (igure 1). The matching was optimized for OdBim in- Put power at 2.45GHz. An equivalent model provided by the diode manufacturer was used to determine the input impedance of the diode at its operation condi tions. The value of the resistor, which represents the load forthe conversion circuit, was determined so that highest RF to DC conversion efficiency was achieved Asa resulta 4kO load was sed Calculating the input impedance ofthe diode from the ‘equivalent model gives only a coarse estimation, be- cause the effects of subsate and extemal components ate not included [8]. These effects can, however, be {aken into account with a proper circuit simulator, such asthe one used here 3. Results and discussion 3.1. Antenna performance ‘The tvoe designed antennas were simulated with HP [ADS (Advanced Design System) Momentum softwae, ‘The simulated antenna layouts (Fede extended tothe board edge, rectifier circuitry omitted) were then utlized in manufietuing the antennas by an etching process. The S-parameters of the manufactured antennas were finaly measured with a vector network analyzer (VNA) to verify the designs. Both simulation and_measurement results (S11) ate represented in Figure ‘The differences between simulated and measured return lose ofthe RT 6010 antenna were mainly due to tler- ances in both material properties and manufieturing process (etching), where 5-10mil dimensional inacou racy can be expected. The effec of these tolerances was ‘emphasized because ofthe high dielectric constant of this substate material, causing also a quite narrow bandwidth. As the dashed line in Figure 2 indicat, the results of simulating the antenna with the size of 765 x76Smils and the substrate dielectric constant of 10.45 (tolerance +025 given by the manufacturer) agreed Well withthe measured rest, Simulatod and measured results, especially forthe an- {enna resonant frequency, agreed fairly well for RT 870. The design on this board material achieved also the widest bandwidth. When finding a reason for the mismatch between simulation and measurement results or FR4, it was discovered thatthe dielectric thickness ‘of the used board material was more close to SSmils rather than 62mils the value that was used in simula: tions. Results of the simulation with substrate thickness ‘of SSmils and relative dielectric constant of 4.3 (dashed lin in Figure 2) agreed very well tothe measured ones. sit sit Gain and efficiency of the antennas were also simu lated. The results ae represented in Table 2. The per- formance of RT 5870 is best lzo in this regard able 2 Simusted gan and effency of the antennas. atenna FR¢ | RT6OI0] RTS870 Proper. {Gain 5), os |exasis |eea efficiency (01 [50 o 80 3.2. Conversion circuit simulations ‘The performance of the conversion circuit was sims: lated with HP_ADS Circuit Simulator. The results are represented in Figure 3. su Figure 2 Retum loss simulation (angle) and measurement (sold) resus or FR (upper, RT 6010 (de) and RT $870 (lower) patch antennas. The dashed line for FRA and RT 6010 represents simulation wih modified antenna properties. Figure 3 Simulated return loss (upper), output votage (it de) and conversion eficency (ower) ofthe three RF to DC ‘corwerion ces a the funeten of input power (ali! oe {or FR4, damondine for RT 6010 and tangle for RT 5870) at248GH. As the simulation results indicate, a good input match ‘vas obtained in the vicinity of O&Bm input power forall designs. Also the results for output DC voltage and conversion efficiency were quite similar, RT. $870 ‘achieving the highest conversion efficiency of 70% at the +5dBim inpat power. Although the differences in ‘optimal performance between substrate materials are small, the effect ofthe etching tolerances on the quality ofthe input match is most severe for RT 6010, as was noticed in the antenna case 3.3. Rectenna measurements {A preliminary testing onthe rectennas shown in Figure 1 was done by measuring the resulting output DC vol age with a traemitterrecciver configuration. A hom antenna, having 154B simulated gain, was used to transmit the test power of 20dBm, Fest the wansmitor fequency was vied in the Viinty of 248GH2 in or der to find the best operating frequency ofthe retenna. This was done because rectifier ccuits alone had not been measured yet and antenna dimensions were from the original simulations (Table 1). The location of the reetenna was then varied to fin the peak in the output voltage and the tensfer distance for desired voltage level was finally measured. Results ae shown in Table 3 Table 3 Recenna measurement resus. FcR [Re [RT 6010] RT S870 poten ton 2556 | 2398 | 2377 Peet [oe [os [a4 exami] & [o [= Considering the theoretical gan ofthe available wans- nitter antenna and simulated gain ofthe receiver patch antennas (including the effect of simulated efficiency), the estimated received power level at Im transfer di tance is -SaBBm - OdBim. Measured received power lev- els were, however, atthe level of ~7aBm - -15dBm. The difference is’ mainly due 10 additional transfer losses and lack of measured gain specification of both transmitting. and receiving antennas. The low output voltage values in Table 3 indicate addtional losses between antenna and rectfie circuits due to impedance mismatch, This ean be seen also by comparing the an- tena measurement results in Figure 2 withthe frequen- cies given in Table3 4. Conclusions Both simulation and measurement results of the 24SGHz rectennas designed into three different sub- 66 strate materials indicate that the low-loss high-fre- {queney Duroid RT 5870 possessing a thick, low g di clectric is most suitable for this purpose. Largest an- tenna bandwidth was simulated/measured and highest conversion efficiency and ourput voltage was simulated for the rectifier circuit designed on this substrate. The to major drawbacks are larger antenna area (and vol- ume) and higher price compared 10 FR4. The smallest ‘antenna is realizable with RT 6010, but narrow band- ‘width, high manufacturing accuracy requirements and ‘ety high price reduces its general usability ‘The RE to DC conversion circuit performance will be measured next for optimization purposes. Also the r2- diation properties ofboth transmiter and receiving an- tenna willbe measured inorder to determine the overall, efficiency ofthe rectenna. In order to increase the out- put DC voltage at the present transmitter RF power Tevel the overall antenna gain must be increased References U1] Obrist B; Hegnauer S., "A Microwave Powered Data Transponder,” Sensors and Actuators, A 46- 49, pp. 244-246, Elsevier Science, Netherlands, 1995, (2) Sharpe C.A., “Wireless Automatic Vehicle Ideni- fication” Applied Microwave & Wireless, pp. 39- 56, fall 1995, {3] MeSpadéen, 10.; Chang, K, "A Dual Polarized Circular Patch Rectifying Antenna at 245 GHz for Microwave Power Conversion and Detection,” IEEE MTT-S Intemational Microwave Symposium Digest 1994, Vol. 3, pp. 1749-1752, San Diego, CAUSA, May 23.27, 1994, {4] Jenn, D.C; Viale, Rita, "Wieless Power Transfer for 2 Micro Remotely Piloted Vehicle.” 1998 IEEE Intemational Symposium on Circuits and Systems, ISCAS ‘98, Vol. 6, pp. 590-593, Monterey, CA, USA, May 31 —June 3, 1998, [5] Pozat, DIM, Microwave engineering, Second edi tion, John Wiley & Sons inc, USA, 1998, Salonen, P.; Keskilammi, M.; Kivikoski, M, “A Comparison of Planar Dual-Band Antennas”, ‘AP2000 Millennium Conference on Antennas & Propagation, Davos, Switzerland, April 914, 2000. 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