Novel Metasurface based Microstrip Antenna Design for Gain Enhancement RF Harvesting

Abstract

This paper presents an enhancement in radio frequency (RF) harvesting for conventional patch antenna using a metasurface layer (MSL). The key point behind such enhancement is inspired by Friis’ equation which states; increasing the antenna gain leads to an increase in the received power. To achieve this goal, a MSL consists of 5×5-unit cells of a modified Jerusalem cross are proposed. The proposed MSL provides gain enhancement of about 10 dBi while the gain of the patch antenna is about 1 dBi. The proposed MSL is fabricated, compacted to the antenna and experimentally characterized. The empirical results indict an excellent agreement with the numerical results in terms of |S11| and radiation patterns. In addition, a set of RF harvesting measurements are made for patch antenna with and without the MSL. The comparison between measurements shows a significant enhancement in the output voltage when the MSL is involved.