Designing and Modeling of a Dual-Band Rectenna With Compact Dielectric Resonator Antenna

In this letter, a compact dual-band rectenna is modeled and developed for low radio frequency (RF) power harvesting. The proposed theoretical model can provide a comprehensive analysis of the rectenna, including the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of the diode, matching efficiency of the rectifier, and total PCE of the rectenna. In the rectenna design, a very compact omnidirectional dielectric resonator antenna (DRA) is proposed with a broad bandwidth exceeding 40%. Meanwhile, a dual-band rectifier is designed based on a single branch in the low-power range with bandwidths covering the two fifth-generation (5G) frequency bands in China (2.515–2.675 and 3.4–3.6 GHz). It was found that the theoretical model can show a high accuracy with the calculation error within 5% in analyzing the dual-band rectifier. The DRA and the dual-band rectifier are integrated to form a compact dual-band rectenna. It shows a higher PCE than those of the existing multiband designs working at similar low-power levels. It is hoped to be implemented in 5G-enabled Internet of Things (IoT) applications for powering wireless sensor nodes.