A wide-range reconfigurable RF energy harvesting system with integrated storage and load regulation controller

This paper presents an integrated RF energy harvesting system that uses a rectifier with 30 reconfigurable parallel stages to cover a wide input power range extending from-14dBm to 4dBm. The system mitigates the conduction losses associated with the reconfigurable switches via employing gate switching. Additionally, a voltage feedback loop is implemented to regulate the average output voltage level at the main load at 1V, while delivering the excess power to a secondary storage unit (supercapacitor) at 3V. Circuit simulations, using a 130 nm CMOS technology, show that the proposed design is capable of achieving a peak Power Conversion Efficiency (PCE) of 45% at 0dBm using an external matching network, and a maximum of 36% at 0dBm with internal matching. Additionally, the system achieves high PCE (> 20%) for an input power range of more than 14dB, along with an excellent load regulation performance of 27mV, eliminating the need for extra voltage regulators at the output.

Automated summary

This paper presents an integrated RF energy harvesting system that uses a rectifier with 30 reconfigurable parallel stages to cover a wide input power range. The system mitigates conduction losses using gate switching and regulates output voltage level with a voltage feedback loop, while delivering excess power to a secondary storage unit.