Flexible Vivaldi Antenna Based on a Fractal Design for RF-Energy Harvesting

Abstract

Radio frequency (RF) energy harvesting technologies have attracted different efforts from researchers to employ low energy in powering portable electronic devices. In this article, an Ultra-Wide Band (UWB) antenna based on a Vivaldi fractal antenna backed with a Metamaterial (MTM) array is exemplified for RF-energy harvesting in the modern 5G networks. The antenna is connected to a full wave rectifier circuit to obtain a rectified DC current. It is found that the exemplified antenna provides a maximum output voltage of 1.4 V and 1.3 V at 3.1 GHz and 4 GHz, respectively, when the incident RF power is around 17 Bm. The measured results and simulations show excellent agreement. The antenna is printed on a flexible Kodak photo paper of 0.5 mm thickness with εr = 2 and loss tangent of 0.0015. The numerical simulations are conducted using CST MWS software package. The proposed antenna structure is fabricated using an ink jet printing technology based on conductive silver nanoparticle ink. Finally, from the obtained measurements after the comparison to their simulations, the proposed antenna covers the frequency band from 2.4 GHz up to 20 GHz with a gain of 1.8 dBi at 3.1 GHz and 4 dBi at 4 GHz.