Rectenna Design for Enhanced Node Lifetime in Energy Harvesting WSNs

In a scenario where every possible solution is investigated for sustainability, Energy Harvesting (EH) stands as an undisputed candidate for enhancing the network lifetime in WSNs where node lifetime decides the network’s life. Radio Frequency (RF) energy is abundantly available in the ambience among all the available energy sources. Since both information and power are transmitted in an RF signal, EH is possible in the far-field region. At first, we present a novel 4-element rectangular Patch Antenna Array (PAA) design of EH rectenna. The receiving antenna is designed to pick up the radio signal in the RF range (2.45 GHz) from the free space. Then, the H-shape antenna is modified by introducing a circular slot to enhance the bandwidth. The paper compares the results of the basic parameters of the antenna, such as return loss, input impedance, bandwidth, gain, directivity, and efficiency. As a result, the modified H-shaped antenna (with circular slot) has an increased gain from 8.24 dB to 8.32 dB, with a reduced return loss from -10 dB to -16 dB and enhanced bandwidth from 64.8 MHz to 868 MHz. The high gain, large bandwidth, suitably matched impedance for a minor return loss, and high efficiency of the modified H-shaped patch antenna makes it eligible for energy harvesting application.

@article{Sonwalkar2022,
  title     = {Rectenna Design for Enhanced Node Lifetime in Energy Harvesting WSNs},
  journal   = {International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications},
  volume    = {13},
  number    = {2},
  year      = {2022},
  publisher = {The Science and Information Organization},
  author    = {Prakash K Sonwalkar and Vijay Kalmani},
  doi       = {10.14569/IJACSA.2022.0130285},
  url       = {https://doi.org/10.14569/IJACSA.2022.0130285}
}