There are several potential candidates for energy transmission technologies suitable for smart actuators and sensors. Smart materials have actively been developed in previous decades in order to sense environmental changes or to actuate proper devices, but their applications as a practical system are limited due to the requirements of hardwire circuits and power supply. These limiting factors have been key challenges to overcome for practical applications of smart materials. This paper presents the design, fabrication and test of flexible dipole rectenna arrays for wireless microwave power transmission. Low voltage/high current rectenna array is designed and the maximum current of 980 mA and the maximum power of 7.2 W are observed. Since this rectenna array is sensitive to the polarization angle, a polarization-free rectenna array is designed. Output voltage, current, power, efficiency and the influence of polarization angle as well as incidence angle on the performance of rectenna array are investigate.

Date Published: 11 April 2007
PDF: 7 pages
Proc. SPIE 6528, Nanosensors, Microsensors, and Biosensors and Systems 2007, 65281E (11 April 2007); doi: 10.1117/12.715898

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 6528:
Nanosensors, Microsensors, and Biosensors and Systems 2007
Vijay K. Varadan, Editor(s)