Rectenna measurement in a realistic environment

Rectennas have received considerable attention in the recent decades thanks to their unlimited applications. In this paper, rectenna measurements in a realistic environment will be investigated. The space diversity technique has been used to mitigate the multipath situation. Two configurations for evaluating the performance of the diversity technique applied to the rectenna(s) were carried out. Especially, two fully automatic measurement setups for RF level and DC level are presented. The measurement system is described with the sleeve dipole transmitting antenna, the movable rectenna receiving system and the configuration of the environment. The reference rectennas operating at 2.45 GHz are presented. The experimental results demonstrate that the output signals of rectennas in the realistic environment fluctuate randomly as a function of their positions, resulting in deep fade of signal quality. By using the space diversity technique, we overcome this phenomenon.