Wi-Fi energy harvester for low power RFID application

Abstract

In recent years, active Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags have crossed into ultra low power domain. With obvious advantages over passive tags, a setback for active tag growth is the need for battery replacement and limited operational life. Battery life could be extended by scavenging surrounding Wi-Fi signals using rectenna architecture which consists of a receiving antenna attached to a rectifying circuit. A seven stage Cockroft-Walton voltage multiplier optimized for low input power (below 0 dBm) is proposed. Prototype was fabricated on RT/Duroid 5880 (RO5880) printed circuit board (PCB) substrate with dielectric constant and loss tangent of 2.2 and 0.0009 respectively. Experimental results show that 2V output voltage can be harvested from an operating frequency of 2.48 GHz with ¡9dBm (0.13mW) sensitivity with 1.57mm board thickness.