Radiative RF power transfer solutions for wireless sensors

Two rectennas are presented. One consists of a printed 5Ω antenna, connected to a loaded voltage doubling rectifier through a LC impedance matching network. The other one consists of a printed loop antenna, complex conjugately impedance-matched to the same rectifier. The second rectenna is reduced in size by a factor of more than four with respect to the first rectenna and showing a 55% RF-to-DC power conversion efficiency at an input power level of -10 dBm. This is a 5% improvement with respect to the 5Ω-based rectenna.

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