Flexible RF-Power Harvesting System for Smart Bandages Using a Textile Dipole Antenna Array

We present a fabric bandage integrated rectenna array for wireless and battery-free smart bandages in healthcare applications. The integrated array consists of 3 rectenna elements and each element comprises an embroidered dipole antenna and a rectifier. The antennas resonate in the UHF band 915 MHz in the presence of the human tissue, with the inter-element mutual coupling under -10 dB. The rectifier design is based on the voltage doubler topology with an RF-to-dc conversion efficiency of 48% for an RF input power of 0 dBm.