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2012 Loughborough Antennas & Propagation Conference

12 - 13 November 2012, Loughborough, UK

Ambient RF Energy Harvesting from DTV Stations


S. Keyrouz, , H. J. Visser, , and A. G. Tijhuis
Eindhoven University of Technology,
Den Dolech 2, 5612 AZ Eindhoven, Netherlands.
imec / Holst centre,
High Tech Campus 31, 5656 AE Eindhoven, Netherlands.
Email: s.keyrouz@tue.nl

AbstractIn the framework of wireless power transmission


and RF energy harvesting, the main objective is to design a harvester that collects ambient Radio Frequencies (RF) broadcasted
from DTV (Digital TV) stations. This paper summarizes the main
challenges experienced, when designing such a harvester. The
distance and the free space path loss between the transmitting
station and the harvesting location are calculated. Using Friis
equation, the available power at the harvesting location is
predicted. A novel broad-band Yagi-Uda antenna that covers the
DTV broadcasting frequencies (470 MHz - 810 MHz) is presented.
The antenna design is based on integrating a wide-band strip
dipole into a Yagi-Uda antenna. Moreover, The rectifier part,
which converts the harvested RF power into DC is discussed, the
simulated and measured input impedance and the output voltage
of different commercial rectifiers are shown. A voltage multiplier
is used to maximize the output voltage, and a matching network
is presented to match the impedance of the multiplier to that of
the antenna.

equivalent model is used to calculate the impedance of the


rectifier as a function of frequency for different incident power
levels. Simulated results are also validated by measurements.
A voltage multiplier is used to maximize the output voltage.
It is shown that the maximum output voltage is reached after
cascading 12 commercial rectifiers at a frequency of 545 M Hz
and an input power level of 15 dBm.
This paper is organized as follows: Section II introduces
the specifications and the locations of the broadcasting and
harvesting stations. Section III discusses the free space path
loss and the estimated available power. Section IV investigates
a novel broadband Yagi-Uda antenna that is used to harvest
RF power. Section V investigates the rectifier part, the voltage
multiplier and the matching network. Finally section VI states
the conclusions of the research.

Index TermsPath loss, power harvesting, radio frequency,


reflection coefficients, input impedance, Yagi-Uda antenna.

II. B ROADCASTING AND RECEIVING STATIONS


The TV broadcasting tower is located in Eindhoven West
0
0
(Croy), 510 25 15.71 latitude and 50 25 47.27 longitude. The
harvesting location is assumed to be at the roof of the IMEC
building on the High Tech Campus (HTC) in Eindhoven.
0
00
Its latitude and longitude positions are 510 24 48.91 and
0
00
50 27 22.06 , respectively. The heights of the transmitting
station and the harvesting location are 90 m and 15.7 m,
respectively. The line of sight distance R = 2006.2 m.

I. I NTRODUCTION
arvesting energy from different resources, like vibration, solar, wind, heat and RF have been the focus
of research recently [1]. RF energy harvesting/transport [2] is
highly advantageous where light/solar energy is not present,
especially inside buildings. Ambient RF energy harvesting
from freely available resources like GSM, WLAN or DTV
has been investigated in [3-5]. It is clearly indicated in [3]
and [4] that for distances ranging form 25 m to 100 m from
a GSM base station, the maximum available power density
level doesnt exceed 1.0 mW/m2 . Also in the same article,
it has been proven that the power density level in a WLAN
environment is at least one order of magnitude lower. Consequently, neither GSM nor WLAN is a potential candidate for
ambient RF energy harvesting, employing small or medium
sized collecting rectennas, due to the extremely low power
levels.
Harvesting RF ambient power from Digital Television
(DTV) signals was first investigated by Intel [5], where 60 W
of energy was harvested at a distance of 4 km from the
broadcasting TV station. This paper investigates the antenna
and the rectifier parts of a DTV wireless power receiving
system. A novel antenna that is suitable to capture the DTV
frequencies is presented. Its radiation characteristics, gain, and
reflection coefficient are also discussed. Simulation results
are validated by measurements. For the rectifier part, an

c
978-1-4673-2220-1/12/$31.00 2012
IEEE

III. F REE SPACE PATH LOSS AND AVAILABLE


AMBIENT POWER
Main Lobe Aperture

Fresnel ellipsoid
R1

R
R2

Figure 1. Fresnel ellipsoid to avoid diffraction and reflection from high


buildings and trees.

The free space path loss is the loss in a transmission link


where the transmission medium is free of all obstacles that
might absorb or reflect radio energy, like trees, buildings and
hills.

Table I
T RANSMISSION FREQUENCY BANDS AND ASSOCIATED EFFECTIVE

The received power [6] PR is:

RADIATED POWER LEVELS


PR = GT GR

4R

2
PT ,

(1)

where R is the distance shown in Fig. 1, is the wavelength


of the propagating signal, PT is the transmitted power, GT and
GR are the maximum gain of the transmitting and receiving
antennas respectively. Equation (1) is the simplest form of the
Friis transmission formula. The product GT PT is called the
Effective Isotropic Radiated Power (EIRP). If the generator
mismatch and the load mismatch are to be taken into account,
then the Friis formula is expressed by eq. (2)

PR = 1 |T |

1 |R |


GT GR

4R

2
PT .

(2)

Chanel
30
31
33
56
60

LP =

4
c

2

f R ,

(3)

where c is the speed of light and f is the operating frequency.


The free space path loss equation is usually expressed on a
logarithmic scale:

Polarization
Vertical
Vertical
Vertical
Vertical
Vertical

The transmitting antenna transmits 15 kW of Effective


Radiated Power (ERP) at different frequency bands as shown
in Table I. The EIRP = GT PT = ERP 1.64 = 24.6 kW =
43.9 dBW . At a frequency of 545 M Hz and a distance
R = 2006.2 m the path loss is calculated using eq. (4). The
received power is calculated using eq.( 5)
PR

= (49.27 + GR ) dBW,
= (19.27 + GR ) dBm = 15dBm,
> 4.27 dBi.

GR
2

ERP (KW)
15
15
15
15
15

B. Specifications of the transmitting station

The free space path loss LP between the transmitting and the
receiving antenna is PT /PR :


Frequency band (MHz)


542-550
550-558
566-574
750-758
782-790

(6)
(7)
(8)

It is clear form eq. (8) that at a distance of 2006.2 m from


the broadcasting TV station, an antenna with a minimum gain
of 4.27 dBi is needed in order to provide an available power
level of 15 dBm.
IV. T HE A NTENNA

(4)

where f is in M Hz and R is in km. The received power on


a logarithmic scale is :

PR = PT LP + GT + GR = EIRP LP + GR .

(5)

For our specific application, a minimum available power


level of 15 dBm is crucial to be able to power a digital
thermometer.

A. Line of sight path loss - practical case

b
g
t
R-L

In the last section the assumption was that the earth is


approximated by a smooth sphere, therefore there is no signal
disturbance between the TV broadcasting station and the
harvesting location. But practically, the earth is not a perfect
sphere and the link between the transmitter and harvesting
location is not a free space. The broadcasted signals are
absorbed, blocked, reflected or scattered by the physical obstacles along the signal path like trees, hills and buildings. A
rule of thumb to avoid diffraction and reflections from high
buildings and trees is that the first Fresnel ellipsoid should be
free of obstacles as illustrated in Fig. 1. To assure that, the
receiving antenna should be placed on the roof of the IMEC
building or, if possible, on the roof of the highest building at
the High Tech Campus (HTC). The antenna should be directed
into the TV broadcasting direction and the antenna polarization
should be aligned with that of the broadcasting station.

F_L

LP = 32.4 + 20 log (f ) + 20 log (R) ,

This section introduces the antenna part of the harvesting


system, where a novel broadband Yagi-Uda antenna [7] is used
to capture RF signals. The design of the antenna is based on
integrating a wide-band strip dipole [8] into a Yagi-Uda antenna. The antenna consists of a reflector and a single director
placed nearby the driven dipole. The length of the director, the
distance between the feed and the director, and the distance
between the feed and the reflector were investigated and
optimized in order to reach the widest bandwidth possible for
receiving DTV broadcasting signals (475 M Hz 810 M Hz).
Figure 2(a) shows the novel broadband Yagi-Uda antenna as
introduced in [7]. Its optimized parameters to harvest ambient
RF power from DTV broadcasting stations are shown in Fig.
2(b). Figure 3(a) shows the simulated gain as a function of

D-L
D-D

R-D

D-W
F-W

R-W

(a)

Parameter

mm

D-L
F-L
F-W, R-W
R-L
R-D
D-D
b
t
g

130
235
15
290
110
5
3
45
1

(b)

Figure 2. (a) Novel broadband Yagi-Uda antenna and (b) its optimized
parameters to harvest ambient RF power from DTV broadcasting stations.

frequency for the proposed Yagi-Uda antenna. It is clearly

5.6

-10

5
4.4

300

Pin = 10 dBm
Real [Zin]

0
S11 [dB]

Antenna gain [dBi]

6.2

-20
-30

MEAS
SIMUL

-40

ZMeasured

100

in

0.475

0.6 0.7 0.8


Frequency [GHz]

0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8


Frequency [GHz]

= 5 dBm

1
0
0

(b)

(a)

ZAE

200

Figure 3. (a) Simulated antenna gain and (b) the measured and simulated
reflection coefficient as a function of frequency for the novel broad-band
Yagi-Uda antenna antenna.

V. T HE R ECTIFIER
This section investigates the rectifier part of the wireless
power transmission system. Figure 4 shows some commercial
rectifiers and their equivalent electrical circuit between pins
1 and 3, see Fig. 4 (a), as described in [9] and [10]. Using
basic circuit analysis, the voltage across the diode d, see Fig.
4 (b), and the current flowing into the diode are calculated.
Eventually the impedance between pins 1 and 3 is calculated.
The accuracy of this model is validated in [10].
The input impedance of the commercial rectifier HSMS282c [11] was measured and compared to the simulated one
as a function of frequency for different input power levels. The
rectifier HSMS-282c contains two diodes in parallel between
pins 1 and 3 and between pins 2 and 3 (Fig. 4). The input
impedance of the two diodes connected in a voltage doubler
configuration, is reduced by half of that of one single rectifier.
The real and imaginary parts of the input impedance are
calculated for different input power levels as a function of
frequency. Figure 5 shows the measured and simulated (ZAE ),
real (top) and imaginary (bottom) parts of the input impedance
as a function of frequency for two different power levels
(10 dBm and 5 dBm).

Imag [Zin]

shown that the antenna gain is higher than 4.27 dBi in the
DTV frequency band which satisfies the requirements.
The antenna is printed on a 1.6 mm thick FR-4 substrate.
The reflection coefficient of the fabricated antenna is measured
between 10 M Hz and 1 GHz using a Vector Network
Analyser. The measured reflection coefficient as a function of
frequency is shown in Fig. 3(b). It is clear form the figure
that the measured reflection coefficient highly agrees with
the simulated one which validates the simulated broadband
characteristics of the novel antenna.

0.5
Frequency [GHz]
Pin = 5 dBm

-200

AE

P = 10 dBm

-400

Measured

in

-600
0

0.5
Frequency [GHz]

Figure 5. Measured and simulated, real (top) and imaginary (bottom) parts
of the input impedance for the commercial rectifier HSMS-282c as a function
of frequency for different power levels.

It is clear from the figure that there is a very good


agreement between the results of the analytical equations
and the measured ones. The main advantage of using the
equivalent electrical model is the ability to model a wide
variety of Schottky diodes, and at the same time, the capability
to accurately predict the impedance of the rectifier which is
critical for the design of a wireless power transmission system.
A. Voltage multiplier investigation
For different applications, different output voltage (Vout)
levels are required. For this reason a voltage multiplier is
employed. This section investigates the output voltage and the
input impedance of a voltage multiplier. Figure 6 shows the
voltage multiplier configuration. In general, a higher number
of stages result in a higher output voltage. However, the output
voltages saturates after a certain number of cascaded stages.
The output voltage depends on the electrical properties of the
rectifier, the operating frequency and the input power level.
Figure 7 shows the output voltage of a voltage multiplier for
the two commercial rectifiers HSMS 285c and HSMS 282c at a
frequency of 545 M Hz and an input power level of 15 dBm.
2n

C V2n

Vout
CV1

Pin

(a)

CH1

C H2n

Zin

(b)

Figure 4. Commercial rectifiers and there equivalent electrical circuit between


pins 1 and 3 as introduced in [10].

RL

Figure 6.
50 k

Voltage multiplier configuration, CV i = CHj = 100 pF . RL =

0.3

44 nH
0

Maximum output
voltage
0.01

0.2
Maximum output
voltage

0.1

Z Antenna
=
50

85 nH

Z Multiplier
=

21.51-j102.78

S11 [dB]

Vout [V]

HSMS 285c
HSMS 282c

-20
0.3

0.005

0
1

80 MHz

-10

0.5 0.6

0.8

Frequency [GHz]
2

6
8
10
Multiplier stages [2n]

12

14

(b)

(a)

Figure 7. Output voltage of a multiplier for different stages at a frequency


of 545 M Hz and an input power level of 15 dBm

Figure 9. Proposed matching network (a) and its reflection coefficient (b)
to match the impedance of a 12 stage multiplier to 50 ohms

It is clear from the figure that the maximum output voltage


for the commercial rectifier HSMS 282c (solid - red curve)
is obtained after cascading only two rectifiers. While for the
rectifier HSMS 285c (dashed - blue curve) a 12 rectifiers are
cascaded before the maximum output voltage is reached which
results in a higher output voltage.

VI. C ONCLUSION

B. Matching network
In order to maximize the power transfer between the antenna
and the rectifier, a matching network is used to match the
impedance of the rectifier to that of the antenna (50 ohms).
Figure 8 shows the real (a) and imaginary (b) parts of the
input impedance (Zin) as a function of multiplier stages. It is
clear from the solid curves (HSMS 282c) that the real part of
the impedance is very low (Zin = 3.53 j207.84 for n = 2
and Zin = 1.752 j104.3 for n = 4) and at the same time
the imaginary part is considerably high which makes it hard
to match the impedance to 50 ohms. While for the second
commercial rectifier, HSMS 285c (dashed curve), cascading
more rectifiers results in an impedance of Zin = 21.51
j102.78 after 12 stages.
Figure 9(a) shows the suggested matching network. The
matching network consists of a 44 nH/85 nH series/parallel
inductor pair. Figure 10(b) shows the magnitude of the reflection coefficient between the impedance of the 12 stage
multiplier and 50 ohms. An 80 M Hz bandwidth is achieved
(500 M Hz - 580 M Hz) with a reflection coefficient <
10 dB which is optimum to harvest RF power from the
channels 30, 31 and 32 (see table I).

60

HSMS 285c
HSMS 282c
Rin =
21.51

40

-400
-800

20
12

0
Imag [Zin]

Real [Zin]

80

4 6 8 10 12 14
Multiplier stages [2n]
(a)

12

Xin = -102.78

HSMS 285c
HSMS 282c

4 6 8 10 12 14
Multiplier stages [2n]
(b)

Figure 8. Real (a) and imaginary (b) parts of the input impedance as a
function of multiplier stages for both commercial rectifiers HSMS 285c and
HSMS 282c

This paper investigates the antenna and the rectifier parts


of a wireless power harvesting system. A novel broadband
Yagi-Uda antenna to harvest ambient RF power from DTV
broadcasting signals is designed, fabricated, and tested. For
maximum power transfer between the antenna and the rectifier,
the antennas input impedance should be matched to that of
the rectifier circuit. In order to maximize the output voltage,
a voltage multiplier is used. It is clearly shown that cascading
12 rectifiers will not only maximize the output voltage but also
will reduce the impedance from Zin = 78.437j1197.47 (for
a single rectifier) to Zin = 21.51 j102.78 (for a 12 stage
rectifier). This impedance reduction makes it feasible to match
the impedance of the rectifier to the standard 50 ohms antenna.
A very simple matching network is used to match the voltage
multiplier to the antenna. The system (antenna, matching
network and voltage multiplier) is expected to harvest RF
power from three different broadcasting channels, resulting
in a maximum output voltage of 0.725 V at a frequency of
545 M Hz and a power level on 15 dBm.
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[2] W. C. Brown, The history of power transmission by radio waves,
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[3] M. Arrawatia, M. S. Baghini, and G. Kumar, Rf energy harvesting
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[4] H. J. Visser, A. C. F. Reniers, and J. A. C. Theeuwes, Ambient rf energy
scavenging: Gsm and wlan power density measurements, in Proc. 38th
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[6] D. M. Pozar, Microwave Engineering. New York: Wiley, 2nd edn., 2002.
[7] S. Keyrouz, G. Perotto, H. J. Visser, and A. G. Tijhuis, Novel
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[8] Y. Chi, K. Wong, and S. Su, Broadband printed dipole antenna with a
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[9] J. A. G. Akkermans, M. C. van Beurden, G. J. N. Doodeman, and
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