1366 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MICROWAVE THEORY AND TECHNIQUES, VOL. 71, NO.

3, MARCH 2023

A Planar Orbicular Rectenna Array System With

3-D Uniform Coverage for Wireless
Powering of IoT Nodes
Manoj Kumar , Member, IEEE, Sundeep Kumar , Graduate Student Member, IEEE,
and Ashwani Sharma , Member, IEEE

Abstract— Microwave power transfer (MPT) is a revolutionary

technique for charging batteries of wireless sensor nodes in
smart applications. However, sensor nodes can be positioned
at any arbitrary orientation and location with respect to the
microwave transmitter (Tx). Therefore, harvested DC power
depends on the node’s position and orientation. Thus, to reduce
this reliance, a novel, fully integrated planar multisector rectenna
(Rx) array is designed to achieve a nearly uniform 3-D spherical
DC coverage. To realize orientation insensitive azimuth and
elevation plane coverage, the proposed Rx features eight radially
arranged endfire Rx (EFR-antenna) elements, and a bore-sight
Rx (BSR-antenna) element with multiarms for inherent DC
combining is used at the center with orthogonally polarized
ports. Furthermore, direct conjugate matching of antenna and
rectifier circuit with integrated operation is applied to realize a
fully integrated design. This reduces insertion losses and achieves
the desired 3-D coverage along with miniaturization, shaping it
suitable for deployment at space-constrained IoT sensor nodes Fig. 1. Dedicated WPT scenario and the need of 3-D-spherical coverage
for orientation oblivion wireless powering. WEH system for indoor application.
Index Terms— Angular misalignment, Internet of Things (IoT),
multisector rectenna (Rx), orientation tolerant, radiation pat- remote battery recharging or even battery-less operations [5].
terns, Rx array, wireless sensor nodes. The major challenge with the Rx-enabled nodes is their low
power harvesting capability [6] which is significantly affected
I. I NTRODUCTION by misalignment between the Tx and the Rx antennas [7],
[8], in particular, when the Rx node rotates in the azimuth
T HE rapid advancement in the Internet of Things (IoT) has
fostered the need to monitor different types of data for
various applications such as home automation [1], smart cities,
or elevation plane. This leads to the angular misalignment
problem occurring due to orientation offset between the Tx
and the Rx and their directional antenna patterns [8], [9],
and industrial applications [2]. However, due to the limited
[10], [11], [12]. For instance, in a dedicated MPT application
battery capacity of the IoT sensor nodes [3], replacement
scenario for smart applications, the Tx (linearly or circularly
or recharging of such a large number of batteries is a pro-
polarized) is generally installed on the ceiling or side walls,
hibitively expensive and strenuous task [4]. Therefore, radio
whereas the IoT sensor nodes can lie anywhere, including
frequency energy harvesting (RF-EH) seems a viable solution
over the floor, table, or a smart device, in any posture with
through the microwave power transfer (MPT) technique, which
arbitrary orientations as illustrated in Fig. 1. The IoT nodes,
uses a dedicated radiofrequency (RF) transmitter (Tx) and
such as environment sensors, medical devices, micro-bots,
a rectenna (Rx) system installed at the IoT sensor node for
and toys, can be recharged by harvesting RF power from
Manuscript received 29 June 2022; revised 26 August 2022; accepted the dedicated wireless power Tx. In the indoor scenario, the
17 September 2022. Date of publication 9 November 2022; date of current wireless power transfer (WPT) system must consistently cover
version 6 March 2023. This work was supported by the Science and Engi-
neering Research Board (SERB), Department of Science and Technology, the 3-D spherical region to enhance tolerance against sensor
Government of India, under Grant ECR/2018/000343. (Corresponding author: node misalignment. Therefore, a robust Rx system capable of
Ashwani Sharma.) harvesting RF power consistently at the sensor node irrespec-
The authors are with the Electrical Engineering Department, Indian
Institute of Technology Ropar, Rupnagar, Punjab 140001, India tive of its orientation is highly desirable [13]. Thus, an efficient
(e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]; ashwani. Rx system with a uniform harvested 3-D spherical DC power
[email protected]). pattern is required to achieve the stated functionality. For
Color versions of one or more figures in this article are available at
https://doi.org/10.1109/TMTT.2022.3217073. example, dipole [5], [14] and monopole [14], [15], [16] are the
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TMTT.2022.3217073 optimal antenna choices for azimuth coverage; however, their
0018-9480 © 2022 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See https://www.ieee.org/publications/rights/index.html for more information.

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KUMAR et al.: PLANAR ORBICULAR RECTENNA ARRAY SYSTEM WITH 3-D UNIFORM COVERAGE 1367

low gain and limited coverage in the elevation plane make

them unsuitable to achieve the aforementioned requirements.
Therefore, to address the low gain problem, several multi-
sector and multiport designs have been reported in the litera-
ture with close to omnidirectional harvesting capability in the
azimuth plane. For instance, a scalable quasi-yagi Rx [17] with
narrow beamwidth and an orientation oblivious planar radial
array is proposed [13]. Moreover, some multisector designs are
reported in the literature to improve the azimuth coverage with
two-sector [18], [19], [20], three-sector [21], four-sector [22],
and six sector arrays [23], [24], [25]. The major issue with
these designs is their inconsistent DC patterns in the azimuth
plane. A few designs achieve consistent omnidirectional DC
pattern using a Yagi–Uda Rx with six sectors [26], a 12-sector
Vivaldi antenna [27], and a six-sector multilayered structure
in the azimuth plane [28], but with a limited elevation plane
coverage. In contrast, a few multibeam Rx designs [5], [29]
offer elevation coverage in the upper hemispherical space
without considering azimuth plane coverage. Although some
designs provide both azimuth and elevation coverage using
external beam forming networks (BFNs) [30], [31] along with
better tolerance against angular misalignment in the azimuth
plane. However, the need for a bulky BFN to receive numerous
beams for elevation coverage makes them unsuitable for small
and low-cost IoT devices. The state-of-the-art designs, even
using 3-D sophisticated Rx structures, lack 3-D spheroidal DC Fig. 2. (a) Top and (b) bottom layout of the proposed WPT Rx system.
coverage, which makes it impossible to address the problem of
orientation misalignment. This reinforces the need for an Rx design and simulation is detailed in Section II-B. The
system capable of providing coverage across the entire azimuth experimental validation of the fabricated prototype is described
and elevation planes. Thus, the literature suggests that realizing in Section III, and performance comparison with the state-
uniform DC coverage in the 3-D space by specifically using of-the-art designs is performed in Section IV. The article is
a planar printed circuit board (PCB)-based Rx design for the concluded in Section V.
WPT system can be perceived as the most challenging design
objective. II. P ROPOSED R X A RRAY D ESIGN FOR
The novel contribution of this work is a fully integrated, 3-D U NIFORM C OVERAGE
planar, miniaturized WPT system for realizing 3-D spherical A. Design Layout
coverage using a dedicated RF power Tx at 5.2 GHz. The The proposed WPT system is designed on a dual-sided
proposed design uses eight sectors of the endfire Rx (EFR) 35 μm copper-cladded FR4 substrate having 1.5-mm thickness
and one centrally placed bore-sight Rx (BSR) to achieve the with dielectric constant r = 4.4 and loss tangent tan δ =
desired coverage. The miniaturization is achieved using con- 0.02 using Ansys HFSS and advanced design system (ADS)
jugate matching between the rectifier circuit and the antenna software at 5.2 GHz. The enlarged view of the top and bottom
with enhanced orientation misalignment tolerance. The pro- layers of the proposed Rx is shown in Fig. 2(a) and (b),
posed DC combining topology with integrated rectifiers pro- and the dimensional parameters are mentioned in Table I.
vides inherent voltage enhancement and is incorporated by The proposed WPT system design comprises eight radially
multiarms of the BSR-antenna, which also offers inbuilt placed EFRs in Region-1 and one BSR placed at the center in
low-pass filter capability with reduced size. The proposed Region-2, as marked in Fig. 2. Each EFR-antenna comprises
EFR elements achieve almost flat azimuth coverage, whereas two metallic layers, top and bottom. The top layer consists of a
the BSR provides enhanced elevation coverage in cooperation proximity feeding line which is electromagnetically coupled to
with the EFR elements. To the best of the author’s awareness, the radiator at the bottom layer. Furthermore, a partial ground
this is the first attempt to design a 2-D planar Rx system plane exists in the bottom layer, which serves as a reflector
that offers better tolerance against orientation misalignment for the endfire element. Moreover, a single director is used to
in 3-D space with miniaturized dimensions without adopting improve the antenna gain performance. The evolution of the
BFN circuits. The immediately mentioned features make the proposed EFR-antenna is influenced by uniplanar microstrip
proposed design suitable for the space and power-constrained EFR-antennas [32], [33]; however, these designs have narrow
sensor nodes for IoT applications. beamwidth and feature complex feeding arrangements, making
This work is organized as follows. Section II-A presents them unsuitable for RF-EH applications. In contrast, the
the layout of the proposed 3-D coverage Rx design includ- proposed proximity feeding structure is designed to achieve an
ing the simulation results. The integrated rectifier circuit endfire beam pattern and easy integration with a shunt-series

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1368 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MICROWAVE THEORY AND TECHNIQUES, VOL. 71, NO. 3, MARCH 2023

TABLE I
D IMENSIONAL PARAMETERS OF THE P ROPOSED R X

In Region-2 of the proposed design, a novel multiarms’

circular patch is designed as the BSR-antenna, also imitating
as the DC combiner circuit. This antenna has eight arms
connected with a central patch which are optimized to provide
a wider beamwidth in the elevation plane. In addition, the eight
arms working as DC-lines provide easy integration with the
EFR elements using a series Schottky diode, achieving an iso-
lation of 21 dB (Fig. 3). Furthermore, dual linear polarization
in the xoy plane is achieved on the patch by optimizing the
two orthogonal ports, each having independent rectification
and having good isolation of 17 dB. The BSR-antenna has RF
gain similar to the EFR-antenna element with the 3-dB RF
Fig. 3. Mutual coupling between different ports of the proposed Rx. beamwidth of 78◦ in φ = 0◦ and 80◦ in φ = 90◦ elevation
plane as shown in Fig. 4(c).
To analyze the elevation coverage forming, the simulated
combined RF pattern of two radially opposite EFR-antenna
and BSR-antenna plotted in Fig. 4(d) illustrates that enhanced
3-D spherical coverage can be achieved by combining the EFR
and BSR elements. A further description of direct impedance
matching, integration of Rx elements, and their equivalent
circuit is provided in Section II-B.

B. Direct Matching and Rectifier Integration

The maximum RF-DC conversion efficiency is achieved
by designing an antenna at input impedance equal to the
complex conjugate of the rectifier circuit impedance. There-
fore, conventionally in Rx designs, distributed impedance
matching network (IMN) is used for transforming the rectifier
Fig. 4. RF radiation pattern for (a) eight EFR-antenna elements showing input impedance to the receiver antenna input impedance
azimuth patterns, (b) radially opposite EFR-antenna elements showing eleva- (50 ) [13], and a DC-low-pass filter (DC-LPF) is used for
tion patterns, (c) BSR-antenna elevation pattern, and (d) two radially opposite eliminating higher order harmonics. However, the distributed
EFR-antenna with BSR-antenna showing elevation plane patterns.
IMN and DC-LPF circuits cause insertion losses and hinder
Rx miniaturization. Therefore, an integrated Rx with direct
Schottky diode (SMS-7630 − 079LF) for RF-DC conversion. conjugate matching with the Schottky diode is introduced [34]
The endfire and bore-sight antenna elements are first simulated for a single element to overcome the immediately mentioned
individually using lumped port excitation and later simulated problems. For designing an integrated Rx array system, direct
jointly to evaluate the effect of mutual coupling on gain and matching requires a new judicious approach and topology for
impedance matching. The high isolation of 44 and 35 dB is joint integration of matching + rectification + DC combining.
achieved between the adjacent and radially opposite EFR ele- The SMS-7630-079LF Schottky diode is used for RF-DC
ments, as demonstrated in the mutual coupling plots of Fig. 3. conversion because of its low junction capacitance, high
The optimized EFR-antenna element offers 5 dBi gain with cutoff frequency, and excellent power threshold efficiency for
3-dB RF beamwidth of 92.8◦ in the azimuth and 137.4◦ in low input RF power range [35], [36]. The Schottky diode
the elevation plane, as illustrated by the simulated RF patterns is modeled in ADS software by considering the parasitic
plotted in Fig. 4(a) and (b), respectively. The overlapped component and the packaging effects provided by Skywork.
azimuth RF coverage of EFR elements in Fig. 4(a) provides The LSSP and harmonic balance (HB) technique are used to
intuition for overall flat coverage; however, the DC coverage is evaluate the impedance of the Schottky diode at 5.2 GHz.
essentially investigated to validate the actually achieved unifor- The rectifier circuit input impedance Z d is evaluated for both
mity post DC-combining. Moreover, the maximum radiation the EFR-antenna and the BSR-antenna. The evaluated input
in Fig. 4(a) and (b) is along the antenna plane, and in Fig. 4(c), impedance at −10 dBm input power level and output load of
it is perpendicular to the antenna plane, which validates the 1100  is Z d = 15.625 − j 57.964  for the EFR-antenna
endfire and bore-sight operations of the proposed WPT system. and Z d = 24.004 − j 91.66  for the BSR-antenna.

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KUMAR et al.: PLANAR ORBICULAR RECTENNA ARRAY SYSTEM WITH 3-D UNIFORM COVERAGE 1369

Fig. 7. Equivalent circuit of the proposed WPT system.

Fig. 5. PWRC between the rectifier circuit and the proposed antenna at DC terminal through via pin without impairing impedance
different power levels. matching and radiation pattern performance of the proposed
WPT system. On the other hand, the common ground plane
acts as the second DC terminal, as shown in Fig. 2.
To explain the working principle and integration approach
of the proposed design, an equivalent circuit is illustrated
in Fig. 7. The circuit diagram demonstrates that the direct
connection of the EFR and the BSR in the RF domain is not
feasible as it results in increased mutual coupling between
both the antenna elements. Moreover, it changes the electrical
length of the antennas, causing impedance mismatch and
radiation pattern distortion, which results in lower RF-DC
conversion efficiency. To address the above-mentioned issue,
an RF choke is recommended [38] using a high-value inductor
(in place of D2 series diode). Although an inductor can block
RF power and provides a DC connection without affecting
the antenna electrical length. However, it increases circuit
Fig. 6. Proposed topology for the integrated WPT system without IMN and losses [5] and cannot stop the DC current backflow during the
DC-LPF.
negative half cycle of RF signal [39], thus unable to provide
a complete RF isolation between Region-1 and Region-2.
The desired input impedance equal to Z d for conjugate Therefore, to facilitate a proper DC connection between
matching is achieved by optimizing feed location and design the EFR and BSR elements, series Schottky diodes are used
parameters for the EFR-antenna and BSR-antenna. Moreover, in the proposed design, which provides high isolation and
the power wave reflection coefficient (PWRC) [37] is cal- limits the backflow of DC current during the negative cycle of
culated for varying the input power in the range of −13 to RF signal. In the topology implemented in Fig. 6 with the
−7 dBm. The variation in PWRC is 0 ≤ PWRC ≤ 0.3 for circuit illustrated in Fig. 7, the shunt diode (D1) becomes
S11 ≤ −10 dB; however, for the desired power range, this reverse=biased (open) during the positive half cycle of the
is less than 0.05, as shown in Fig. 5. The proposed topology RF signal impinging from the endfire direction and passes
for integration of the EFR-antenna and BSR-antenna elements the DC current from the series diode (D2) which is forward-
with Schottky diodes is illustrated in Fig. 6. The EFR-antenna biased. While during the negative half-cycle, D1 is forward-
is conjugate impedance matched with the shunt and series biased, whereas D2 is reverse-biased, which prevents the
diode to harvest DC power. Similarly, the BSR-antenna is backflow of the DC into the EFR. This connection of the two
conjugate matched with two orthogonally positioned shunt diodes, D1 and D2, is complementing each other and can
Schottky diodes to harvest DC power from any orientation contribute to overall voltage enhancement [40], [41] for the
in the xoy plane. Furthermore, the integrated EFR and BSR EFR. Furthermore, the Schottky diodes D3 and D4 are shunt
have inherent low-pass filter [34], and therefore, it obliges to connected with the BSR to provide rectified DC output from
realize a completely integrated Rx circuit by mimicking itself two orthogonal polarizations during the positive half cycle of
as the DC-LPF in the topology presented in Fig. 6. Moreover, the RF signal impinging from the broadside direction. The
as shown in Fig. 6, the proposed BSR-antenna element in DC output collected from the center of the BSR is fed to the
Region-2, through its multiarms, imitates the inherent DC load R L .
combiner circuit to evolve a completely integrated RF-DC
system. The proposed system DC output emanates from the C. Simulated DC Pattern Results
BSR center point because this has evidently low voltage The simulated harvested DC pattern of the EFR and BSR
potential. Therefore, this point can be picked as the one post rectification is depicted in Fig. 8. The simulated DC

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1370 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MICROWAVE THEORY AND TECHNIQUES, VOL. 71, NO. 3, MARCH 2023

Fig. 8. Simulated DC patterns for (a) eight EFR elements to cover the
azimuth plane, (b) elevation plane pattern of EFR, (c) BSR in the elevation Fig. 10. Measurement setup for the harvested DC pattern in θ = 90◦ plane
plane, and (d) two radially opposite EFR with BSR to cover the elevation of the proposed WPT system.
plane.

Fig. 9. Fabricated prototype of the proposed WPT system. Fig. 11. Measurement setup with the vertical polarized Tx antenna.

A. DC Voltage Measurement
pattern is compared with the simulated RF pattern, and the
actual performance is used as a reference to illustrate the com- The measurement of RF characteristics, such as S11 ,
bined Rx performance. This is evaluated using a co-simulation impedance, and RF radiation pattern, of a single antenna,
technique using Ansys HFSS and keysight ADS with consider- consisted in the fully assembled integrated Rx, is not possible.
ing circuit losses. The EFR has 3-dB DC beamwidth of 67◦ in However, to determine the performance of the proposed WPT
the azimuth plane. Therefore, the radial combination of eight system, a measurement of harvested open DC voltage is
EFR elements can achieve uniform DC beam coverage in the performed. The measurement setup uses a signal generator
entire azimuth plane, as illustrated in Fig. 8(a). In addition, to emanate 25 dBm of RF power through an 8.6-dBi gain
this offers a good 3-dB DC beamwidth coverage (118◦ ) in horn antenna (Tx), where 1-dB cable losses are considered.
the elevation plane, as shown in Fig. 8(b). The simulated DC The Rx is mounted on a rotating turn table positioned at 1-m
patterns for BSR in the elevation plane have a 3-dB beamwidth distance from the Tx, as illustrated in Fig. 11. The harvested
of 54◦ as shown in Fig. 8(c), which in coordination with output DC voltage (Vdc ) is measured using a Keysight U1232A
the EFR elements are expected to enhance the uniformity multimeter across the optimal load. The 3-D coverage perfor-
in 3-D spherical coverage, as demonstrated in Fig. 8(d). The mance of the proposed Rx is determined by measuring the DC
measurement results to validate the proposed WPT system are power patterns in the azimuth (θ = 90◦ ) and elevation planes
presented next. (φ = 0◦ and 90◦ ). The DC pattern measurement in θ = 90◦
plane is done by placing Tx in the horizontal polarization as
shown in Fig. 10 whereas for φ = 0◦ and φ = 90◦ planes
III. E XPERIMENTAL VALIDATION the DC patterns are measured individually for both vertical
The proposed WPT system is fabricated on the FR4 sub- and horizontal polarized Tx as depicted in Figs. 11 and 12,
strate using the MITS PCB prototype machine to validate the respectively. A circular polarized Tx can be used for the
simulation results. The final fabricated prototype with mounted measurements; however, the proposed measurement scheme
diodes is shown in Fig. 9. The RF-DC conversion efficiency is adopted due to resource constraints in the laboratory. The
and DC voltage pattern measurements are carried out in an measured DC power pattern of the proposed WPT system in
anechoic chamber. θ = 90◦ using the horizontal polarized Tx is depicted in

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KUMAR et al.: PLANAR ORBICULAR RECTENNA ARRAY SYSTEM WITH 3-D UNIFORM COVERAGE 1371

Fig. 12. Measurement setup with the horizontal polarized Tx antenna.

Fig. 13. Normalized (a) measured DC pattern in θ = 90◦ plane, (b) φ = 0◦ ,

and 90◦ planes for the horizontally polarized Tx and (c) φ = 0◦ and 90◦
planes for the vertically polarized Tx. Fig. 14. Measured efficiency and harvested DC voltage with respect to the
output load for (a) EFR and (b) BSR.
Fig. 13(a), which is in good agreement with the simulated
DC power pattern illustrated in Fig. 8(a) showing uniformity. IoT devices used in smart home monitoring and automation
Furthermore, DC patterns measured in φ = 0◦ and 90◦ applications. Moreover, the proposed WPT system can also be
planes using the horizontal and vertical polarized Tx are shown used to recharge sensor nodes in industrial applications such as
in Fig. 13(b) and (c), respectively. The DC patterns measured gas, liquid, smoke, and air pollution detection systems placed
using the horizontal polarized Tx will correspond to the BSR at any arbitrary location or orientation with respect to the Tx.
patterns in the elevation planes since the EFR elements are in The performance comparison with the state-of-the-art designs
cross-polarization. The measured 3-dB DC pattern beamwidth is discussed in Section IV.
is 85◦ and 94◦ in φ = 0◦ and 90◦ planes, respectively. The
vertical Tx measurement setup offers a hybrid DC pattern, IV. P ERFORMANCE C OMPARISON W ITH
which is the combination of the DC power harvested by the S TATE - OF - THE -A RT
EFR and the BSR. The measured DC pattern illustrated in The performance of the proposed WPT system is compared
Fig. 13(c) shows that coverage of 200◦ is achieved in the with the state-of-the-art designs in Table II. A few multisector
elevation plane, which is in good agreement with the simulated Rx array designs are proposed in the literature to enhance
DC patterns plotted in Fig. 8(d). performance tolerance against change in receiver orientation.
A dual-port dual-beam grid array Rx [29] and six-beam
B. RF-DC Efficiency Rotman lens Rx [42] improve the bore-sight coverage in
The RF-DC conversion efficiency (ηRF-DC ) of both the EFR the elevation plane. However, the large size with no pro-
and the BSR is evaluated separately using a variable poten- vision for azimuth coverage makes these designs unsuitable
tiometer (600–2600 ) and plotted in Fig. 14. The maximum for deployment at IoT sensor nodes. To achieve dual-plane
ηRF-DC obtained for the EFR is 48.47% with the optimal load coverage, a 3-D five-sector Rx array is integrated with a
of 1150 , and 47.32% is achieved for the BSR with an four-port BFN [30], [31], which generates four independent
optimal load of 1200 . Moreover, the maximum harvested beams in the elevation plane per sector; however, there is no
open DC voltage of 600 mV is achieved for the proposed WPT beam along the axial direction. In addition, the large size of
system. The proposed EFR and BSR systems receive RF power BFN obstructs the miniaturization of the Rx design, making
level of −9.75– 10 dBm. The proposed endfire and bore-sight it inappropriate for integration with space-constraint sensor
Rx element performance is analyzed in the presence of load. nodes. Furthermore, the harvested DC pattern in the azimuth
The endfire Rx offers ∼243 mV at 1150  and bore-sight plane is not uniform and hence does not mitigate the angular
radiator provides ∼238 mV at the 1200  optimal load. misalignment problem. Furthermore, orientation estimation
The harvested DC power is sufficient to recharge low-power and RF energy harvesting system is proposed in [13]. This

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1372 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MICROWAVE THEORY AND TECHNIQUES, VOL. 71, NO. 3, MARCH 2023

TABLE II
C OMPARISON W ITH S TATE - OF - THE -A RT

design used eight endfire scoop antennas to harvest RF power RF power harvesting in any arbitrary orientation in the Rx
from a dedicated RF source and also estimate the precise plane. In addition, the eight arms of the bore-sight antenna
orientation of the moveable IoT sensor nodes using the mini- enable direct integration of endfire and bore-sight elements
mum mean square error (MMSE) algorithm in the azimuthal with isolation of 21 dB. The proposed Rx system harvests
plane. This system uses an external matching network and four a maximum of 600 mV open DC voltage. Furthermore, the
radial stubs for filtering operation, which increase insertion proposed design has a low mutual coupling of −44 and
losses with 1.82 times larger dimensions when compared −35 dB between the adjacent antenna and radially opposite
with the proposed WPT system having an integrated design. endfire antennas, respectively. This provides miniaturization
This resulted in low efficiency and bulky structure. Moreover, with close integration of adjacent elements. Moreover, this
it harvests power only in the azimuth plane and thus does not proposed Rx achieves better tolerance for 3-D spherical cov-
provide misalignment tolerance against the angular movement erage with a smaller footprint when compared with the state-
in the 3-D plane. A few designs in the literature [26], [27] are of-the-art designs. Thus, the proposed WPT system offers
able to achieve omnidirectional DC patterns to mitigate the good performance with better 3-D spherical coverage for
angular misalignment in the azimuth plane but with limited recharging sensor nodes with arbitrary orientations in the smart
elevation plane coverage. In addition, the RF-DC efficiency of environment.
the proposed Rx is better than the state-of-the-art designs with
miniaturized size due to a completely integrated system. The R EFERENCES
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[20] Y.-Y. Hu, S. Sun, and H. Xu, “Compact collinear quasi-Yagi B.Tech. degree from Punjab Technical University,
antenna array for wireless energy harvesting,” IEEE Access, vol. 8, Kapurthala, India, in 2016, and the master’s degree
pp. 35308–35317, 2020. in electronics and communication engineering from
[21] H. Sun, J. Huang, and Y. Wang, “An omnidirectional rectenna array with Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra, India, in 2018.
an enhanced RF power distributing strategy for RF energy harvesting,” He is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree at the
IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 70, no. 6, pp. 4931–4936, Jun. 2022. Electrical Engineering Department, Indian Institute
[22] A. Bakytbekov, T. Q. Nguyen, C. Huynh, K. N. Salama, and A. Shamim, of Technology Ropar, Rupnagar, India.
“Fully printed 3D cube-shaped multiband fractal rectenna for ambient He was a Research and Development Engineer at
RF energy harvesting,” Nano Energy, vol. 53, pp. 587–595, Nov. 2018. Perfect RFID, New Delhi, India, from July 2018
[23] J. Huang, H. He, and H. Sun, “Robust-efficiency RF energy harvesting to December 2018, and an Antenna Engineer at
for Internet of Things applications,” in Proc. Photon. Electromagn. Res. Wavelinks Antennas, New Delhi, from 2017 to 2018. His current research
Symp.-Fall, Dec. 2019, pp. 314–317. interests include RFID sensors, rectenna design, meta-materials, base station
[24] S. Wang and H.-Y. Chang, “A 3D rectenna with all-polarization and antenna design, the IoT, and 5G.
omnidirectional capacity for IoT applications,” in IEEE MTT-S Int.
Microw. Symp. Dig., Aug. 2020, pp. 1188–1190.
[25] C. M. Kruesi, R. J. Vyas, and M. M. Tentzeris, “Design and development Sundeep Kumar (Graduate Student Member, IEEE)
of a novel 3-D cubic antenna for wireless sensor networks (WSNs) and received the B.Tech. degree from the Career Institute
RFID applications,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 57, no. 10, of Technology and Management, Faridabad, India,
pp. 3293–3299, Oct. 2009. in 2012, and the master’s degree in electronics
[26] F. Fezai, C. Menudier, M. Thevenot, T. Monediere, and N. Chevalier, and communication engineering from the National
“Multidirectional receiving system for RF to DC conversion signal: Institute of Technology, Kurukshetra, Kurukshetra,
Application to home automation devices,” IEEE Antennas Propag. Mag., India, in 2019. He is currently pursuing the Ph.D.
vol. 58, no. 3, pp. 22–30, Jun. 2016. degree at the Electrical Engineering Department,
[27] C. Song, P. Lu, and S. Shen, “Highly efficient omnidirectional inte- Indian Institute of Technology Ropar, Rupnagar,
grated multiband wireless energy harvesters for compact sensor nodes India.
of Internet-of-Things,” IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron., vol. 68, no. 9, From 2013 to 2015, he was a Software Engineer
pp. 8128–8140, Sep. 2021. with HCL Technologies Ltd., Chennai, India. His current research inter-
[28] W. Deng, S. Wang, B. Yang, and S. Zheng, “A multibeam ambient ests include antenna design for wireless power transmission, base stations,
electromagnetic energy harvester with full azimuthal coverage,” IEEE vehicular communication, the IoT, and 5G.
Internet Things J., vol. 9, no. 11, pp. 8925–8934, Jun. 2022.
[29] Y. Hu, S. Sun, H. Xu, and H. Sun, “Grid-array rectenna with wide angle
coverage for effectively harvesting RF energy of low power density,” Ashwani Sharma (Member, IEEE) received the
IEEE Trans. Microw. Theory Techn., vol. 67, no. 1, pp. 402–413, B.Tech. degree from The LNM Institute of Informa-
Jan. 2019. tion Technology, Jaipur, India, in 2010, the master’s
[30] E. Vandelle, D. Bui, T. Vuong, G. Ardila, K. Wu, and S. Hemour, degree in technology and communication systems
“Harvesting ambient RF energy efficiently with optimal angular cov- from ETSIT, Technical University of Madrid (UPM),
erage,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 67, no. 3, pp. 1862–1873, Madrid, Spain, in 2013, and the Ph.D. degree from
Mar. 2019. the University of Deusto, Bilbao, Spain, in 2015.
[31] D.-J. Lee, S.-J. Lee, I.-J. Hwang, W.-S. Lee, and J.-W. Yu, “Hybrid He has been working as an Assistant Professor at
power combining rectenna array for wide incident angle coverage in RF the Indian Institute of Technology Ropar, Rupnagar,
energy transfer,” IEEE Trans. Microw. Theory Techn., vol. 65, no. 9, India, since July 2018. He was a Visiting Training
pp. 3409–3418, Sep. 2017. Fellow at the University of Kent, Canterbury, U.K.,
[32] C. Chen, “A compact wideband endfire filtering antenna inspired by a from May 2014 to August 2014, and a Junior Research Fellow at the
uniplanar microstrip antenna,” IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag. Lett., Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi, India, from 2010 to 2011. His
vol. 21, no. 4, pp. 853–857, Apr. 2022. research works have been published in various international journals and
[33] M.-C. Tang, T. Shi, and R. W. Ziolkowski, “Flexible efficient quasi- conferences such as IEEE T RANSACTIONS AND L ETTERS , IET journals, and
Yagi printed uniplanar antenna,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 63, Wiley letters. His current research interests include exploiting field-forming
no. 12, pp. 5343–5350, Dec. 2015. techniques in antenna design for wireless power transmission, the IoT, and 5G.

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