Design, implementation and analysis of wide-band antenna with novel DGS for RF energy harvesting

The paper focuses on the design of wideband antenna for harvesting RF energy which help in solving the issues related to charging, maintenance, and replacement of batteries by making use of existing energy in the environment, thereby serving as an alternate to conventional energy resources. RF energy which already exists in the environment is intercepted by the antenna and is converted into useful direct current. For the same purpose a wideband antenna provides a good choice as it can capture most of the energy lying in its band. The proposed wide band antenna can be used as an energy harvester in the range 5.314–6.54 GHz resonating at center frequency of 5.8 GHz which is used by Wi-Fi. The work consists of designing and simulating the antenna using Computer Simulation Technology (CST) Studio Suite. The design consists of a novel Defected Ground Structure (DGS) incorporated below the feed line to broaden the antenna bandwidth. Rogers RT 5880 (lossy) is incorporated for fabrication with relative permittivity 2.2. Measurement of S11 for the fabricated antenna is done with the help of the Vector Network Analyzer (VNA) which shows conformity with the simulation results. The gain obtained for the antenna at 5.8 GHz, 5.314 GHz and 6.54 GHz is 5.703 dB, 7.12 dB and 5.3 dB respectively. The proposed antenna can be used for large variety of energy harvesting applications.