Wide-band dielectric resonator antennas for RF energy harvesting

Abstract

Energy harvesting seems to be a suitable solution for remote device powering in systems like wireless sensor networks, which are becoming ubiquitous. In presented paper, a wide-band Dielectric Resonator Antenna (DRA) for RF energy harvesting is studied. The frequency band of interest lies between 1.84 GHz and 2.445 GHz, covering three main wireless communication systems, namely Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) operating on 1800 MHz, Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) at 2100 MHz and wireless local area network (WLAN) based on 802.11 IEEE standard [9] at 2400 MHz. Two antennas based on identical bow-tie dielectric resonators with different feeding schemes are proposed. The aperture coupled DRA shows superior performance in terms of impedance matching and stability of the radiation pattern when compared to the probe coupled antenna. The simulation results of these two antennas are compared and experimentally verified by measurements.