5.8-GHz circularly polarized dual-diode rectenna and rectenna array for microwave power transmission

This paper reports a new circularly polarized rectenna whose rectifying circuit includes two diodes. The rectenna consists of a coplanar stripline (CPS) truncated patch antenna and CPS bandpass filter, which can block harmonic signals up to the third order reradiating from the rectifying circuit. The rectenna is printed on Rogers Duroid 5880 substrate with ε_r=2.2 and a thickness of 20 mil. The new dual-diode rectenna can provide at least twice the dc output voltage than the traditional rectenna with only a single diode, which has the same layout dimension as the single-diode rectenna. The dual-diode rectenna achieves an RF-to-dc conversion efficiency of 76% at 5.8 GHz. The proposed rectennas can be interconnected to form the rectenna arrays by series, parallel, and cascaded connections. It is found that a cascade connected rectenna array can provide the highest output voltage. The antenna element can be easily extended to become a traveling-wave antenna or array suitable for high output voltage or current in wireless power transmission applications.