Flexible Meta-Patch Rectenna Array for Energizing Low-Power Wearable Medical Sensors
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-1-2024
Abstract
This article presents a low-cost 2x2 metasurface-based rectenna array operating at the 2.45 GHz industrial, scientific, and medical (ISM) band, designed to power low-power wearable medical sensors (WMS). The proposed antenna is a novel textile-based metasurface interlayer patch (meta-patch) antenna fabricated on a felt fabric substrate, which replaces the conventional ground plane with a grounded metasurface consisting of a 3x3 unit cell array. A single excitation port is used for both the patch antenna and the metasurface to improve gain, efficiency, and bandwidth. The meta-patch antenna achieved a high gain of 7 dB, an efficiency of 77%, and an enhanced bandwidth of 120 MHz. The rectifier employs a seven-stage Cockcroft-Walton Voltage Multiplier (CWVM) topology, fabricated on a rigid substrate. To evaluate the performance of the meta-patch rectenna array and the effect of adding more elements, the proposed meta-patch rectenna was tested in single-element, 2x1 array, and 2x2 array configurations under continuous RF power. The single-element, 2x1 rectenna array, and 2x2 rectenna array achieved power conversion efficiencies (PCE) of 52%, 53%, and 56%, with DC output powers of 414 mu W, 429 mu W, and 450 mu W, respectively, at an input power of -1 dBm. The results demonstrate the potential of the proposed rectenna arrays for efficiently energizing low-power WMS.
Keywords
Metasurfaces, Rectennas, Antenna arrays, Substrates, Sensor arrays, Patch antennas, Textile antennas, Energy harvesting, Wearable antennas, Wearable sensors, Medical devices, Biosensors, Cockcroft-Walton rectifier, meta-patch rectenna array, meta-patch textile antenna, metasurface-based antenna, RF energy harvesting, seven-stage rectifier, textile rectenna array, wearable rectenna array, wearable medical sensors
Divisions
biomedengine,sch_ecs
Funders
Ministry of Education, Malaysia (FRGS/1/2020/TK0/UM/02/45 (FP124-2020))
Publication Title
IEEE Access
Volume
12
Publisher
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Publisher Location
445 HOES LANE, PISCATAWAY, NJ 08855-4141 USA