RF Energy Harvesting Using Mobile Phone Base Station Signals

The fundamental goal of energy harvesting systems is to reduce the need for a wired power supply or battery replacements. Until a few years ago, in integrated electronic systems, detection and communication functions were remarkable challenges with regard to their power supply. There have been advances in the reduction of energy consumption and in battery technology; however, there was always the problem of a wired connection or some battery to replace. This work is aimed to acquire knowledge of RF-DC conversion systems working with mobile phone base station signals; in particular, frequency bands around 806 MHz are considered. The study is carried out, firstly designing and realizing an RF-DC conversion circuit and then measuring the voltage levels obtained from the implemented circuit, at the selected frequency. Ambient radio frequency sources are considered thus, for the circuit design, low power levels around -20 dBm are assumed.