Design and realization of an ultra‐low power sensing RF energy harvesting module with its RF and DC sub‐components

Herein, design, development, and analysis of ultra‐low power sensing energy harvesting modules and their subcomponents for ISM band applications have been studied with a holistic approach in an effort to achieve a feasible and high efficient RF energy harvesting performance. The complete harvester system designed and developed here consists of a zero‐bias RF energy rectifying antenna (rectenna), DC boost converters and energy storage super‐capacitors. Compared with the counterpart energy sources, the surrounding or transmitted wireless energy has low intensity which requires designs with high efficiency. To achieve a successful harvester performance, rectifier circuits with high sensitivity Schottky diodes and proper impedance matching circuits are designed. Dedicated RF signals at various levels from nanowatts to miliwatts are applied at the input of the rectenna and the measured input power versus the scavenged DC output voltage are tabulated. Furthermore, by connecting the rectifier to a high gain antenna and using a RF signal transmitter, the wireless RF power harvesting performance at 2.4 GHz was tested up to 5 m. The performance of the rectenna is analyzed for both low‐power detection and efficiencies. Impedance matching network is implemented to reduce the reflected input RF power, DC to DC converters are evaluated for their compatibility to the rectifiers, and super‐capacitor behaviors are investigated for their charging and storage capabilities. The measured results indicate that a wide operating power range with an ultra‐low power sensing and conversion performance have been achieved by optimizing the efficiency of the Schottky rectifier as low as ?50 dBm. The system can be used for battery free applications or expanding battery life for ultra‐low power electronics, such as; RFID, LoRa, Bluetooth, ZigBee, and low power remote sensor systems.     

Performance comparison of a single and multiband power amplifiers using IHP 0.25 μm SIGe HBT technology

In this work, a single‐band power amplifier (PA) with a fixed‐frequency/band output matching network and multiband PA with a switch‐tuned output matching network is designed, using IHP (Innovations for High Performance), 0.25 μm‐SiGe HBT process. The behavior of the amplifiers has been optimized for 2.4 GHz (WLAN), 3.6 GHz (UWB‐WiMAX), and 5.4 GHz (WLAN) frequency bands for a higher 1‐dB compression point and efficiency. Multiband characteristics of the amplifier were obtained by using a MOS‐based switching network. Two MOS switches were used for tuning the band of the output matching network. Postlayout simulations of the multiband‐PA provided the following performance parameters: 1‐dB compression point of 25.2 dBm, gain value of 36 dB, efficiency value of 12.8% operation and maximum output power of 26.8 dBm for the 2.4 GHz WLAN band, 1‐dB compression point of 25.5 dBm, gain value of 32 dB, efficiency value of 13.3% and maximum output power of 26.6 dBm for the 3.6 GHz UWB‐WiMAX band and 1‐dB compression point of 24.8 dBm, gain value of 23 dB, efficiency value of 12.5% and maximum output power of 26.3 dBm for the 5.4 GHz WLAN band. For the fixed‐band, at 3.6 GHz, the postlayout simulations resulted the following parameters: 1‐dB compression point of 25.5 dBm, gain value of 32 dB, efficiency value of 18% and maximum output power value of 26.8 dBm. Measurement results of the single‐band PA provided the following performance parameters: 1‐dB compression point of 20.5 dBm, gain value of 23 dB and efficiency value of 7% operation for the 2.4 GHz band; 1‐dB compression point of 25.5 dBm, gain value of 31.5 dB and efficiency value of 17.5% for the 3.6 GHz band; 1‐dB compression point of 22.4 dBm, gain value of 24.4 dB and efficiency value of 9.5% for the 5.4 GHz band. Measurement results show that using multistage topologies and implementing each parasitic as part of the matching network component has provided a wider‐band operation with higher output power levels, above 25 dBm, with SiGe:C process. These results proved that the PA, with switching/tunable output matching network, provides compatible performance parameters, when compared with the fixed‐band PA. The ability of being capable of operation in different frequency bands with compatible performance parameters, when compared with fixed‐band PA, multiband PA can be realized with additional less parasitics, area, and cost advantages. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE, 2009.     

The design of radio frequency energy harvesting and radio frequency‐based wireless power transfer system for battery‐less self‐sustaining applications

In this paper, the RF energy harvesting system and RF‐based wireless power transfer system are proposed and designed for battery‐less self‐sustaining application. For energy harvesting, the designed antenna array improves the received RF power effectively and also can harvest RF energy in multi‐frequency bands. For wireless power transfer, the proposed helical antenna realizes the system design in miniaturization. Subsequently, the T shape LC matching network are designed between the antenna and the rectifying circuit to obtain more power transmission. The measured results show that the proposed Wi‐Fi rectifier and 433 MHz rectifier offer a maximum conversion efficiency of 66.8% and 76% in case of the input power is ?3 dBm and 0 dBm, respectively. Finally, the performance of the RF‐based wireless power transfer system and RF energy harvesting system are attested by experimentally measurement, the measured results indicate that these systems can be used to power electronic.     

A compact omnidirectional dual‐circinal rectenna for 2.45 GHz wireless power transfer

A compact dual‐circinal rectenna with omnidirectional characteristic is designed for microwave wireless power transmission at 2.45 GHz. A novel dual‐circinal receiving antenna with the reflection coefficient of ?32.5 dB is proposed which is formed by expanding folded curves. By designing an impedance matching network with a 60 ° radial stub and a single stub, a rectifier is presented with the maximum efficiency of 55.6 % and the output dc voltage of 1.19 V under the input power of 0 dBm. Simulation and measurements have been carried out for the antenna and the rectifier. The measured results agree well with the simulated value. The results of rectenna experiment show that the maximum conversion efficiency is 51% at 2.45 GHz when the input power is 0 dBm. The proposed rectenna has the characteristics of compact size and omnidirectional harvesting which are advantageous in RF energy harvesting applications.     

A 200 W broadband high power amplifier using hybrid power combining network and digital level control

In this article, a 2 to 6 GHz solid‐state power amplifier with 53 dBm output power has been analyzed, designed, and fabricated. To achieve a wideband high output power, we introduce a 16‐way hybrid power combiner based on microstrip planar binary and parallel structures. The simulation and measurement results of the proposed hybrid power combining network (PCN) show that the maximum power combining efficiency is around 86% with the insertion loss of around 0.6 to 1.5 dB and an isolation of 20 dB between the ports. Also, to compensate the output power variations due to the thermal and operating frequency changes across the bandwidth, a digital level control (DLC) unit utilizing an agile control algorithm is proposed which decreases the output power variations to 2% of the desired output power. A cooling heatsink fan system has been also designed in order to transfer the heat generated power to the air. The measured output power for the applied input continuous wave is higher than 52.5 dBm. In addition, the power added efficiency (PAE) is better than 15% across the wide portion of the bandwidth and the measured third‐order intermodulation is about 20 dBc (average).     

Broadband high‐efficiency monolithic InGaP/GaAs HBT power amplifiers for wireless applications

In this article, a broadband approach to high‐efficiency power amplifier performance, based on the parallel‐circuit Class E mode, is discussed. Results for a practical implementation of multi‐band and multi‐mode handset power amplifiers are shown. Measurements demonstrate the feasibility of the concept for highly efficient operation of DCS1800, PCS1900, CDMA2000, and WCDMA. PAE is greater than 50% at 30 dBm output power in the DCS1800 and PCS1900 bands, as well as better than 38% at 27 dBm output power and an ACLR of ?37 dBc is achieved for WCDMA operation. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE 13, 496–510, 2003.     

Investigation of microwave power limiter for Industrial Scientific Medical band (ISM) applications

In this paper, a new design of microstrip power limiter which is based on microstrip technology and zero bias Schottky diode is introduced. In this context, the FR‐4 substrate that was characterized by dielectric permittivity (4.4), dielectric thickness (1.6 mm), and the HSMS 286k Schottky diode is used to design the proposed power limiter. The planar resonators are designed, optimized, and simulated with the shunting of the HSMS 286k diodes by using Schematic solver integrated in ADS from Agilent Technologies. The simulation results are significant in terms of high impedance matching, strong insertion of the low power, and good limitation ratio of the high power. The proposed power limiter is fabricated and tested in the measurement part. It is observed that the results are in agreement with the numerical analysis in terms of matching, isolation, and power limitation. The achieved microwave power limiter offers simple construction, small size (44 × 40 mm²), wide bandwidth, and good limitation ratio less than 10 dBm when the input power reaches 30 dBm.     

A millimeter‐wave CMOS power amplifier design using high‐Q slow‐wave transmission lines

A three‐stage 60‐GHz power amplifier (PA) has been implemented in a 65 nm Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) technology. High‐quality‐factor slow‐wave coplanar waveguides (S‐CPW) were used for input, output and inter‐stage matching networks to improve the performance. Being biased for Class‐A operation, the PA exhibits a measured power gain G of 18.3 dB at the working frequency, with a 3‐dB bandwidth of 8.5 GHz. The measured 1‐dB output compression point (OCP_1dB) and the maximum saturated output power P_sat are 12 dBm and 14.2 dBm, respectively, with a DC power consumption of 156 mW under 1.2 V voltage supply. The measured peak power added efficiency PAE is 16%. The die area is 0.52 mm² (875 × 600 μm²) including all the pads, whereas the effective area is only 0.24 mm². In addition, the performance improvement of the PA in terms of G, OCP_1dB, P_sat, PAE and the figure of merit using S‐CPW instead of thin film microstrip have been demonstrated. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE 26:99–109, 2016.     

Analysis and design of a novel concurrent Class B/J continuum power amplifier

In this paper, a novel concurrent Class B/J continuum mode is presented based on waveform shaping of current and voltage. The behavior characteristics and performances of power amplifiers (PAs) in concurrent dual‐band mode are investigated in detail. According to the analysis of proposed concurrent mode, the optimal load impedances at fundamental, harmonic and intermodulation (IM) frequencies are related to the magnitude ratio of the two carriers. Comparing with concurrent Class‐B mode, two parameters α, β can be configured independently in the proposed concurrent mode, which provides more freedom and flexibility for design without output power and drain efficiency degradation. In order to verify the proposed theory, a 1.9/2.35 GHz dual‐band power amplifier based on proposed concurrent mode is designed, fabricated and measured. Experimental results show that when the PA is driven by two 10 MHz LTE signals concurrently with total 9.2 dB peak‐to‐average power ratio (PAPR), the total average power is 36.0 dBm with 40.6% drain efficiency, which indicates a good concurrent performance.     

Investigation on harmonic spur characteristics of hybrid integrated LDMOS and AlGaN/GaN power amplifiers at different temperatures

The harmonic spur characteristics of a hybrid integrated S‐band power amplifier (PA), consisting of both stages of LDMOSFET and AlGaN/GaN HEMT, are studied at different temperatures. The PA offers a peak output power of 50 dBm (100 W) with power added efficiency higher than 50%, and adjacent channel power ratio performance is less than ?30 dBc. A temperature test chamber is employed for measuring the harmonic spur of PA from 233 to 393 K, and its linear response to temperature is captured at high output power level.     

Application of ultra wideband RF energy harvesting by using multisection Wilkinson power combiner

In this study, an ultra‐wide band (UWB) energy harvesting circuit was proposed using the Greinacher rectifier circuit. The circuit was designed with Wilkinson power combiner (WPC) for use at two different radio frequency signal inputs. To enable broadband operation, the multisection Chebyshev impedance matching technique was applied in the branches of the WPC circuit. The center frequency was selected 2.2 GHz in the design. In terms of the parameters of reflection, transmission and isolation, the WPC circuit operates in the 0.4 GHz‐3.4 GHz range and the percentage bandwidth has been calculated as 136%. In the designed Greinacher rectifier circuit, power conversion efficiency (PCE) was analyzed for different input powers. When load resistor selected as R = 1500 Ω, the PCE for the input power of 9 dBm was about 70%. The proposed circuit, where WPC and Greinacher rectifier circuits was used together for energy harvesting; was operated in the frequency ranges BW₁ = 0.4‐0.81 GHz, BW₂ = 1.54‐1.84 GHz, and BW₃ = 2.2 GHz‐2.89 GHz. As a power combining application, dual power inputs were applied to the WPC circuit with frequencies of 540 MHz‐1800 MHz, 540 MHz‐2450 MHz, 540 MHz‐2700 MHz, 800 MHz‐1800 MHz, 800 MHz‐2450 MHz and 800 MHz‐2700 MHz. Eventually, approximately 70.5% PCE and 1.65 V output voltage were obtained.     

多频段功率可控的CMOS开关类功率放大器设计

开关类功率放大器相对于传统的线性功率放大器有更高的效率,其中E类开关功率放大器由于其高效、易于实现等特点被广泛运用,但在低频率时E类功率放大器难以达到足够的输出功率和效率。设计实现的多频段开关功率放大器在高频段（433 MHz）采用E类匹配方式,在较低的频段（315 MHz、230 MHz）采用新颖的方波匹配。在Cadence软件平台下进行仿真及版图绘制,结果显示该多频段开关功率放大器各频段都实现了20 dBm的输出功率,漏极效率均达到40%,同时,通过控制晶体管尺寸,可以对输出功率进行数字控制。     

Design of wideband microstrip power divider/combiner with input and output impedance matching for RF energy harvesting applications

Lately, it has been seen that wireless communication systems have been more developed and there has been a huge demand for multi‐spectral transactions. Using circuits for more than one function is a serious requirement in communication technology. Especially, it expected from RF output stages to show the same performance on more than one frequency. To that end, it is required to produce a solution with wideband designs. In this study, a novel power divider/combiner design with a layered conic line has been investigated for the RF energy harvesting applications. The center frequency was set at 2 GHz and concluded with three different designs. In each design, bandwidth and S parameter characteristics were compared according to the number of layers of the transmission, and it was observed that as the number of layers increases, the bandwidth also increases. According to the design result, triple layer Wilkinson power divider was selected to connect to Villard voltage doubler circuit. The Wilkinson power combiner circuit inputs were given between ?10 dBm and 5 dBm input power. As a result, when low input power was given, efficiency was observed about 70%.     

Design of a high‐efficiency dual‐band class‐J/J power amplifier considering concurrent‐mode input drive

This article analyses concurrent dual‐band Class‐J/J power amplifiers (PAs) with simultaneous input drive at both bands. Although it is well known that the Class‐J PA has the same performance regarding the efficiency compared with the conventional Class‐B PA, in this article, we show that concurrent‐mode efficiency of Class‐J/J dual‐band power amplifier is higher than the Class‐B/B counterparts much closer to their single‐mode efficiency. Furthermore, it has been explained that the performance of concurrent operation of dual‐band PAs is highly dependent to the design space of PA load reactance at intermodulation terms. We also explore that at intermodulation frequencies the design space includes an efficiency degradation region occurring around a specific impedance, which should be avoided when designing for concurrent operation mode. The dependency of the concurrent‐mode efficiency to the nonlinearity performance of the transistor output capacitance is also considered. A concurrent dual‐band Class‐J/J PA operating at 1.842 and 2.655 GHz bands is implemented, where the harmonic and intermodulation control networks are designed based on closed‐form equations. Measured results reveal that about 60% balanced concurrent‐mode efficiency can be achieved, which outperforms recently reported counterparts. At the lower and upper bands, output powers of 41 and 40.5 dBm and efficiencies of 73.5% and 71.7% are obtained, respectively.     

2–6 GHz GaN distributed power amplifier MMIC with tapered gate‐series/drain‐shunt capacitors

In this article, using a 0.25 μm GaN HEMT process, we present a 2–6 GHz GaN two‐stage distributed power amplifier MMIC that utilizes tapered gate series capacitors and nonuniform drain transmission lines with tapered shunt capacitors to simultaneously obtain a linear gain enhancement and optimum load line for each transistor. By using well‐derived equations to provide each transistor with the optimum load impedance and to tune the phase delay between the input and output transmission lines, the nonuniform distributed power amplifier is designed for second‐stage amplification, and satisfactory performance is demonstrated. The phase balance and tapering of the gate series capacitors have a role in improving the linear gain of the two‐stage amplifier. The measured data show a linear gain of 22 ± 1 dB, an input/output return loss of more than 15 dB, saturated output power of 41.2–43.1 dBm under a continuous‐wave mode, and a power‐added efficiency of 18–22% from 2 to 6 GHz which are very competitive values compared with previous works. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE 26:456–465, 2016.     

High power GaN‐HEMT SPDT switches for microwave applications

In this article, the design, fabrication, and on‐wafer test of X‐Band and 2–18 GHz wideband high‐power SPDT MMIC switches in AlGaN/GaN technology are presented. The switches have demonstrated state‐of‐the‐art performance and RF fabrication yield better than 65%. Linear and power measurements for different control voltages have been reported and an explanation of the dependence of the power performances on the control voltage is given. In particular, the X‐band switch exhibits a 0.4 dB compression level at 10 GHz when driven by a 38 dBm input signal. The wideband switch shows a compression level of 1 dB at an input drive higher than 38 dBm across the entire bandwidth. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE, 2009.     

Self‐oscillating mixer using six port power divider

A self‐oscillating mixer (SOM) that uses a six port microstrip power divider is presented in this article. The oscillation and mixing functions are executed using a pair of identical GaAs field effect transistors. The power division and combination of the RF and local oscillator (LO) signals involved in the operation are implemented using the six port network. The RF input port of the proposed SOM is totally isolated from the operation of the LO which is a desirable feature in many applications. The proposed structure can work as a stand‐alone oscillator with a frequency of 4.71 GHz and a power level of 16.1 dBm. When fed with a RF signal, the proposed structure becomes a fully functional SOM exhibiting a conversion gain of 5.2 dBm. The simulation and measurement results of the proposed SOM are presented to validate the design concept. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE 25:269–276, 2015.     

Dissipativity reinforcement in feedback systems and its application to expanding power systems

This paper focuses on the performance analysis and improvement of interconnected passive systems. We assume that each subsystem has a special passivity property that is characterized by 2 parameters. The parameters are also utilized for evaluating the dissipation performance as the L₂‐gain. Then, the feedback system composed of passive subsystems inherits the parameter‐dependent passivity, and the parameter transition is given. In addition, it is shown that the dissipation performance of the feedback system is strictly improved as compared with that of the subsystems, which is called dissipativity reinforcement in this paper. Furthermore, we expand the feedback system to a larger‐scale system via the iterative feedback connection of the passive subsystems. Then, the performance of the entire system is gradually reinforced with the increase in the number of subsystems. Subsequently, we extend the class of parameter‐dependent passivity to a frequency‐dependent one. Finally, dissipativity reinforcement via an iterative feedback connection is applied to a power system that involves a large number of renewable energy generators. In particular, we propose a strategy for designing the power system, such that the dissipation performance of the entire system is gradually reinforced via scale expansion, ie, with the increase in the amount of energy generators installed.     

An efficient dual‐band rectenna using symmetrical rectifying circuit and slotted monopole antenna array

In this article, an efficient dual‐band rectenna making use of the newly proposed symmetrical rectifying circuit working at the frequency of 1.8 and 2.45 GHz, is proposed. The proposed dual‐band rectifying circuit is combined with an array of compact wideband planar monopole modified circular slot antenna in order to facilitate the efficient rectenna design. The rectifying circuit employs symmetrical matching network in addition to the symmetrical rectifier thereby facilitating the suppression of the odd order harmonics. This eventually results into the higher output voltage as compared to the conventional rectifier circuits. Moreover, the dual‐band topology of the proposed rectenna increases the overall voltage by harvesting energy from two independent RF sources. The measured results of the fabricated structure show that the maximum RF to dc conversion efficiency of the proposed rectifier circuit reaches up to 70% at 9 dBm input RF power. From application point of view, the proposed rectenna circuit is tested to extract the RF energy from 1.8 GHz cellular and 2.45 GHz Wi‐Fi bands to energize a low‐power LED. The overall rectenna structure is reasonably compact providing good performance, which can potentially be employed for efficient wireless power transmission system.     

磁耦合谐振式无线电能传输系统传输特性研究

针对磁耦合谐振式无线电能传输(MCR-WPT)系统中线圈参数和负载电阻改变对系统传输性能造成的影响,利用两线圈结构的MCR-WPT等效电路模型,推导了系统输出功率和效率表达式,分析了线圈互感、负载电阻与系统输出功率和传输效率的关系,以及线圈线径、匝数与互感的关系;借助COMSOL有限元仿真软件建立线圈三维模型,并搭建多组两线圈MCR-WPT实验系统对理论分析结果进行了验证.研究结果表明:通过增大收发线圈线径和匝数,可以提高系统输出功率和传输效率,但与线圈线径相比,线圈匝数对传输效率的影响更为明显,而且随着匝数的增加,系统会在更远的传输距离处取得输出功率最大值;随着负载电阻不断增大,系统输出功率和传输效率都呈现先增加后减小的趋势,证明了系统的输出功率和传输效率均存在最大值,但系统输出功率和传输效率达到最大值时的最佳负载不同,即不存在可使输出功率和传输效率同时取最大值的最优负载电阻.