Multiband Ambient RF Energy Harvesting Circuit Design for Enabling Batteryless Sensors and IoT

Ambient radio frequency (RF) energy harvesting (RF-EH) allows powering low-power electronic devices without wires, batteries, and dedicated energy sources. Current RF-EH circuit designs for ambient RF harvesting are optimized and fabricated for a predetermined frequency band. Thus, a single circuit is tuned for a given band with simple extensions to multiple circuits operating individually in distinct bands. Our approach is different in the sense that it designs and implements a common circuit design that can operate on multiple different RF cellular and ISM bands. This paper makes two contributions. First, it presents a study of ambient RF signal strength distribution conducted in Boston, MA, USA, indicating locations and associated RF bands that can point toward the practicality of ambient RF-EH. Second, it demonstrates an adjustable circuit for harvesting from LTE 700-MHz, GSM 850MHz, and ISM 900-MHz bands with one single circuit. Our circuit design is fabricated on printed circuit board with comprehensive evaluations at each associated frequency to test the power conversion efficiency (PCE). In addition, we characterize the charging performance, and feasibility of powering sensors outdoors such as TI eZ430-RF2500. Results reveal more than 45% PCE for our prototype.