Indoor Wireless RF Energy Transfer for Powering Wireless Sensors

Abstract

For powering wireless sensors in buildings, rechargeable batteries may be used. These batteries will be recharged remotely by dedicated RF sources. Far-field RF energy transport is known to suffer from path loss and therefore the RF power available on the rectifying antenna or rectenna will be very low. As a consequence, the RF-to-DC conversion efficiency of the rectenna will also be very low. By optimizing not only the subsystems of a rectenna but also taking the propagation channel into account and using the channel information for adapting the transmit antenna radiation pattern, the RF energy transport efficiency will be improved. The rectenna optimization, channel modeling and design of a transmit antenna are discussed.