International Journal of Engineering Research and Technology.

ISSN 0974-3154 Volume 10, Number 1 (2017)

© International Research Publication House http://www.irphouse.com

Design and Implementation of Microstrip Antenna for RF Energy

Harvesting

Snehal Patil
M.E. Student, Department of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering
Saraswati College Of Engineering Plot no 46, Sector 5,
Near MSEB Sub Station, Kharghar Navi Mumbai,
Maharashtra, India

Sonal Gahankari
Assistant Professor, Department of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering
Saraswati College Of Engineering Plot no 46, Sector 5,
Near MSEB Sub Station, Kharghar Navi Mumbai,
Maharashtra, India

Abstract harvest high-frequency energy in free space and convert it to

This paper describes the antenna design for RF power DC power. Harvesting RF energy and converting it into useful
harvesting system. The design goes through three phases DC power requires careful design:
designing of antenna, matching network and rectifier. A dual - An efficient antenna is designed to boost RF signal.
band Microstrip antenna suspended above ground plane is - A matching circuit to transfer maximum RF power from
designed to operate in GSM 1.8 and ISM 2.4 GHz bands. The source to load.
antenna incorporates the capacitive feed strip which is fed by - Rectifying circuit to convert input RF to DC.
coaxial probe technique where the inductive impedance of
probe is effectively cancelled by the capacitive patch. The
designed antenna provides good frequency response and fairly
directional radiation pattern. For designing and simulation of
proposed antenna we have used IE3D software.

Keywords: IE3D- Integral Equation 3Dimensional software,

MSA- Microstrip antenna, GSM-Global System for Mobile
Communications, EH- Energy Harvesting, ISM-Industrial,
Scientific and Medical Bands, Rectenna.
Figure 1: Block diagram of RF energy harvesting system
Introduction
Over past two decades, wireless systems have been developed
and implemented to such an extent that frequency spectrum Related Work
has become dense. These systems are Wi-Fi, cellular radio, In literature different research works have been presented on
radio broadcast and TV broadcast. Large amount of ambient RF energy harvesting systems. Dual-stage RF energy
energy (e.g. wind, solar and tide) is widely available and harvester circuit consisting of seven and ten stage has been
large-scale technologies are being developed efficiently to designed for unlicensed ISM band at 915MHz with multiple
capture it. Also, there are small amounts of “wasted” energy antennas to increase the amount of energy harvested [1]. To
that could prove to be useful if captured. Recovering even a harvest energy for GSM 900 band at a distance of 10m from
cell towers electromagnetically-coupled square microstrip
fraction of this energy would have a significant environmental
antenna has been proposed using single stage and six stage
and economical impact. This is where energy harvesting (EH)
comes in. The concept of energy harvesting is not new rather voltage doubler RF circuit [2]. This provides an alternative
it came into picture 100 years back [1]. The method of source of energy and protects people living in nearby areas
extracting energy from environment to generate electricity is from hazards of radiation from towers. Study of different
called energy harvesting or energy scavenging. This antenna parameters, feeding techniques, basic concepts of
technology offers two main advantages a) Energy is freely antenna design, formulas to calculate height and width and
available b) It is "green" for the environment. The ambient other parameters of antenna, design of broadband antennas
energy present around us can be harvested using a rectifying frequency range [3]-[4], [6]. Basics of antenna design, use of
antenna, popularly known as rectenna [14]. RECTENNA is a IE3D software tools in designing antenna such as define port,
rectifying antenna that is used to convert electromagnetic add feed line etc [5]. An efficient dual band antenna for
boosting reception of ambient RF signals with wide
energy into direct current electricity. The components of the
bandwidth in Wi-Fi bands 2.45GHz and 5GHz has been
energy harvesting system [7] (antenna, matching network and
rectifier) are usually referred as a Rectenna, which is able to investigated in [7] which provides an alternative source to
power sensors in harsh environments and remote places. For

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 International Journal of Engineering Research and Technology. ISSN 0974-3154 Volume 10, Number 1 (2017)
© International Research Publication House http://www.irphouse.com

GSM bands 1800 MHz and 915 MHz the RF energy The configuration is basically suspended micro strip antenna
harvesting circuit with planar dual band monopole antenna is in which the radiating patch and feed strip are placed above
designed to support green technology and wireless sensor the substrate of thickness “h”mm. A SMA connector is used
network applications [8].Nevertheless, this kind of design to connect feed strip which capacitively couples energy to
should be improved in terms of bandwidth by increasing radiating patch. The specifications for the design are given in
substrate thickness or by adding parasitic elements. For table 1.
mobile and portable devices capacitive feed compact
microstrip UWB antenna has been introduced in [9] to reduce All parameters are optimized using IE3D software. The
size and increase impedance bandwidth. The capacitive feed antenna is designed and optimized to capture the energy
strip design provides with 50% improvement in impedance from the ambient at radio frequency range of ISM 2.4GHz and
bandwidth and reduces spurious radiations. The microstrip GSM 1800 band. The challenge is to design an antenna able to
antenna with capacitive fed element having ground plane, operate in both 2.4GHz and 1.8 GHz band. This antenna is
radiating patch and small patch located between ground plane highly desired for system flexibility. The design is based on
and radiating patch analyzed using moment method which suspended capacitive fed MSA. The antenna substrate is
gives desired frequency response [10]. To increase bandwidth placed above the ground plane with height ’h’ with an air
the microstrip antenna with capacitive feed, slots across gap’g’. The idea behind capacitive fed is simple. At
radiating and non-radiating sides has been presented in resonance, probe capacitance and inductance inherent to
[11].Slotted patch is complex but provides with constant antenna equivalent circuit cancel out each other leaving real
radiation pattern. For GSM 900 band a differential microstrip impedance.
antenna with improved gain for RF energy harvesting has The specifications for the design is as follows
been presented in [12]. A differential input to rectifier results
in reduced efficiency of harvesting circuit. So Table 1: Design values of the Antenna
electromagnetically coupled microstrip antenna with Parameter Value
improved gain, efficiency and bandwidth has been designed. Length and Width of patch 42.8X53 mm
RF energy harvesting circuit [13] with broadband bent
triangular monopole antenna with a stable radiation pattern Length and Width of ground plane 80X80 mm
has been proposed which receives both horizontal and vertical Length of feed strip(s) 6.2 mm
polarized waves. RF energy harvesting system using Width of feed strip(t) 1.8 mm
rectifying microstrip antenna to harvest energy from cell Separation of feed strip from patch(d) 0.5 mm
phones in GSM band i.e. 900 MHz has been presented [14]
which is used in low cost devices for wireless power Air gap(g) 19.2 mm
transmission. To obtain optimum parameters matching and Dielectric constant 4.4
rectifying circuit has been studied for the energy harvesting Loss tangent 0.02
system and multistage rectifiers to produce higher efficiency Thickness of substrate 1.6 mm
[15].In this paper a novel dual band microstrip antenna with
capacitive feed strip is designed to operate in GSM 1.8 and
ISM 2.4 GHz bands. In the following section simulation and
fabrication results of microstrip antenna are discussed and
evaluated. And finally conclusion is drawn from the results.

Antenna Design
The geometry of the proposed antenna is shown in “Fig.3.”
The substrate material is FR4 as one of the most accepted
industry-wide standard substrate material for electronic circuit
boards.

Figure 3: Geometry of the dual-band Microstrip antenna

Simulation Results
With the objective of efficient RF energy harvesting, we
focused on the fabrication and development of a dual-band
antenna.

Return Loss
Figure2: Basic geometry of capacitive fed Microstrip antenna The S11 graph of simulated design is shown in below “Fig.4”
below. The S11 graph gives us the relationship between return

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 International Journal of Engineering Research and Technology. ISSN 0974-3154 Volume 10, Number 1 (2017)
© International Research Publication House http://www.irphouse.com

loss and frequency. From the result it is observed that the

antenna is resonating at 1.8 GHz and 2.34GHz with return
loss below 12 dB.

Figure 6: 3D Radiation pattern of Microstrip antenna

Smith chart
Figure 4: Simulated S11(dB) Vs Frequency (Ghz)
The value of impedance should be near 50Ω to perfectly
match the port with the antenna. The impedance for this
VSWR (Voltage Standing Wave Ratio)
The simulated VSWR plot for micro strip feed antenna is antenna is 51.89Ω. The results of the simulated impedance are
shown in “Fig.5”.The VSWR or Return Loss determines the shown in “Fig.7” above. The real part of the impedance at the
matching properties of antenna. It indicates how efficiently resonant frequencies is close to 50Ω, 51.33Ω,and 57.76Ω
antenna is transmitting and receiving electromagnetic wave for1.8 GHz and 2.34GHz, respectively.
over particular band of frequencies. VSWR lie in the range of
1-2 which has been achieved for the frequency 1.8GHZ,
2.34GHZ, which is near the operating frequency value. The
value of VSWR is 1.11and 1.2 resp.

Figure 7: Smith chart of Microstrip antenna

3D Pattern and Gain

Figure 5: VSWR plot of Microstrip antenna

Radiation Pattern
Microstrip patch antenna has radiation patterns that can be
calculated easily and it can be said that the power radiated or
received by the antenna is the function of angular position and
radial distribution from the antenna. The shape of radiation
differs. According to frequency pattern, a directional radiation
is obtained.

Figure 8: 3D Pattern and gain of Microstrip antenna

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 International Journal of Engineering Research and Technology. ISSN 0974-3154 Volume 10, Number 1 (2017)
© International Research Publication House http://www.irphouse.com

The antenna gain defines the antenna’s ability to radiate in Navi Mumbai for the consistence support in successful
particular direction when connected to a power source. Gain is completion of this paper.
usually calculated in the direction of maximum radiation. The
gain of proposed antenna is 6.28 dB. References
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Acknowledgement Journal of Basic and Applied Sciences, pp.180-188, 10 July
I express my sincere gratitude to my guide, Sonal Gahankari,
2014.
Assistant Professor Dept. of Electronics and Communication
Engineering, Saraswati College of Engineering, Kharghar,

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