CPW-Fed Light-weight Circularly Polarized Rectenna

Abstract:

In this paper, a thin circular polarization rectenna for near space aerocrafts is designed. Since aerocrafts are generally limited in load and moving continuously, the rectenna should have the characteristics of circular polarization, light weight, small volume, low profile, and is easy to be conformed to the surface of aerocrafts. The rectenna designed in this paper works at 5.8 GHz and is fed by coplanar waveguide (CPW), which has a wide bandwidth. The rectifier circuit adopts series diode form, and uses CPW lowpass filter for DC filtering without using any lumped elements. The designed rectenna, which only weighs 1.98 g, has a compact structure and a 0.5 mm thick profile, and the optimum rectification efficiency is 71.22%. The test results are in good agreement with the simulation results, which verifies the feasibility of the design.