Wideband circularly polarized leaky wave rectenna

Abstract This paper presents a circular polarized rectenna based on a leaky wave antenna (LWA). Integrating circular polarization with leaky wave radiation greatly improves energy harvesting by minimizing polarization losses and extending the spatial range of captured RF signals. The LWA exhibits rapid frequency-dependent beam scanning, which is efficient by enabling harvesting RF power at different directions based on the received power direction. The proposed rectenna consists of LWA array integrated with a rectifier circuit and is designed to harvest RF power at the 5G midrange band. The implemented LWA has wide beam scanning angle from − 21 to 29 o with a high gain value of 9.8 dBi at 5.3 GHz. A Rectifier circuit correlated with a matching circuit is implemented. The designed matching circuit is based on a wideband compression network to compress the variation ratio of the input impedance. The results of the matched rectifier circuit show that the implemented circuit can operate from 4.1 to 5.5 GHz with effective impedance matching and stable wideband performance. The rectifier circuit is designed using an SMS7630 Schottky diode with a low turn-on voltage. The LWA is fabricated, its parameters are measured, and compared with simulated results. Then the LWA is used in the receiving mode, integrated with the rectifier circuit, and measured. The proposed rectenna obtained a maximum measured DC output voltage of 1.2 V with conversion efficiency of 53.8% at 4.2 GHz with received power of 0 dBm.