Flexible Rectenna on an Eco-Friendly Substrate for Application in Next-Generation IoT Devices
Source abstract
Abstract
Globally, there are now more than 19 billion connected Internet of Things (IoT) devices, which are fostering innovation across various sectors, including industry, healthcare, education, energy, and agriculture. With the rapid expansion of IoT devices, there is an increasing demand for sustainable, self-powered, eco-friendly solutions for next-generation IoT devices. Harvesting and converting radio frequency (RF) energy through rectennas is being explored as a potential solution for next-generation self-powered wireless devices. This paper presents a methodology for designing, optimizing, and fabricating a flexible rectenna for RF energy harvesting in the 5G lower mid-band and ISM 2.45 GHz band. The antenna element has a tree form based on a fractal structure, which provides a small size for the rectenna. Furthermore, to reduce the rectenna’s environmental impact, we fabricated the rectenna on a substrate from biodegradable materials—natural rubber filled with rice husk ash. The rectifier circuit was also designed and fabricated on the flexible substrate, facilitating the seamless integration of the rectenna in next-generation low-power IoT devices. The numerical analysis of the parameters and characteristics of rectenna elements, based on the finite-difference time-domain method, demonstrates a high degree of agreement with the experimental results.
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Research context
OpenAlex topics: Advanced Sensor and Energy Harvesting Materials · Energy Harvesting in Wireless Networks · Interactive and Immersive Displays
SciVX discovery tags are terminology-based. OpenAlex topics are source-provided classifications.
Affiliations
Department of Communication and Computer Engineering, South-West University “Neofit Rilski”, 2700 Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria
Faculty of Telecommunications, Technical University of Sofia, 1000 Sofia, Bulgaria
Funding
BULGARIAN NATIONAL SCIENCE FUND
References (46)
Show source-provided references
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