A Planar Dipole Array Surface for Electromagnetic Energy Harvesting and Wireless Power Transfer

We present a design of an electromagnetic energy harvesting surface inspired by an array of printed metallic dipolar elements. The unit cell of the proposed harvester is based on two printed asymmetric off-center fed dipoles. As a proof of concept, a finite array of 9×3 unit cells was analyzed numerically and experimentally. The array was first analyzed for maximizing radiation to ac absorption where each dipole was terminated by a resistor across its gap. For dc conversion, the resistors were the replaced by Schottky diodes. The simulation results show radiation to ac harvesting efficiency of 99%. An overall radiation to dc harvesting efficiency of 76% was obtained experimentally, which, to the best of the authors' knowledge, exceeds the performance of all previous energy harvesting surfaces. Another critical feature of the proposed designs is enhancing the power per diode in order to maximize its turn-ON time.