IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL.

15, 2016 1865

Wireless Power Transfer in the Radiative Near Field

Vinay R. Gowda, Student Member, IEEE, Okan Yurduseven, Member, IEEE, Guy Lipworth, Tomislav Zupan,
Matthew S. Reynolds, Senior Member, IEEE, and David R. Smith, Member, IEEE

AbstractA scheme for wireless power transfer (WPT) in the in the far-field region, which begins at a distance of z = 2D2 /0
radiative near-field (Fresnel) region is presented. The proposed from the transmitting (Tx) antenna [7], where D is the largest
Fresnel WPT scheme is designed to focus microwaves to a
diffraction-limited region where a detector can be positioned,
aperture dimension, 0 is the free-space wavelength, and the
achieving reasonably high power transfer efficiency over moder- aperture lies in the xy-plane. However, achievable power trans-
ate distances. The configuration consists of transmit and receive fer efficiencies in the far-field region are often unacceptably
microstrip patch array antennas, with the receiving antenna con- low. Moreover, the footprint of the receiving (Rx) aperture must
nected to a power-harvesting half-wave rectifier (rectenna). Fres- increase with distance to intercept the power diverging from the
nel region operation enables the fields radiated by the transmitting
aperture to be localized both in range and cross-range. Using Fres-
Tx aperture.
nel region focusing, we achieve an increase of 66.8% in the amount Near-field schemes can still be considered if the target to
of received power when compared to the performance of a con- be powered lies within the radiating near field of the source,
ventional beamforming array. We also demonstrate the efficiency where quasi-optical approaches can be used. In this intermediate
improvement by powering an LED using the on-axis and off-axis Fresnel zone, which begins at a distance z = 0.62 D3 /0 [7],
focusing configurations.
a focal point, F (x, y, z), can be defined by optimizing the phase
Index TermsFocusing, Fresnel, near field, wireless power distribution across the Tx aperture [8][10]. This enables control
transfer. of the field radiated by an aperture not only in the cross-range,
xy-plane, but also in range, z-axis. The field intensity from the
I. INTRODUCTION
source can thus be localized, increasing the amount of power
IRELESS power transfer (WPT) schemes have been
W proposed that leverage both the near-field and far-field
(Fraunhofer) zones. The near-field zone is divided into the re-
received by the Tx aperture placed at the focal point.
In this letter, we consider focusing in the radiating near field
to enhance WPT efficiency. Our configuration consists of planar
active and radiating (Fresnel) near fields. Most WPT schemes Tx and Rx microstrip patch array antennas, with the Tx antenna
demonstrated in the literature have been designed for the reac- producing a focused beam and the Rx antenna placed at the focal
tive near-field [1][3] and far-field [4][6] zones, where com- point. Using the Rx aperture and a half-wave rectifier (HWR)
plete systems have been demonstrated. In the reactive near- circuit, we form a rectenna structure that converts the RF signal
field zone, power is transferred between resonant circuits via to dc. The output of the Rx antenna is alternatively connected
magneto-inductive coupling. Systems operating in this zone to a microwave power meter to measure and compare the power
can have high WPT transfer efficiencies, but their usability is received with and without focusing.
restricted to small separation distances d between source and
target, since the efficiency of magneto-inductive systems falls
as 1/d6 [3]. In addition, the strong coupling can introduce a res- II. TRANSMITTING FRESNEL REGION ANTENNA DESIGN
onance frequency shift that varies strongly as distance between Analyzing the characteristics of the fields produced by an
the resonant circuits [1], necessitating some method of either antenna aperture within each of the surrounding field regions
changing the operating frequency or dynamically retuning the plays an important role in visualizing the concept of Fresnel
resonators to maintain optimal efficiency. focusing. A depiction of a square aperture focusing a beam in
For distances beyond the reactive near field, magneto- the Fresnel region is demonstrated in Fig. 1. As shown in Fig. 1,
inductive coupling becomes insignificant. Long-range WPT ap- the reactive near-field region of the aperture is dominated by
plications with microwave or laser sources [5], [6] can be applied evanescent waves, rapidly decaying as a function of distance.
Within the Fresnel region, the radiated fields can be confined
Manuscript received December 12, 2015; revised February 6, 2016; accepted to a desired focal point by optimizing the phase distribution of
March 12, 2016. Date of publication March 15, 2016; date of current version
December 7, 2016. the aperture. Once the far-field limit is reached, the fields start
V. R. Gowda, O. Yurduseven, G. Lipworth, and D. R. Smith are with forming a diverging beam.
the Center for Metamaterials and Integrated Plasmonics, Department of Our Fresnel region WPT implementation makes use of two
Electrical and Computer Engineering, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708
USA (e-mail: [email protected]; okan.yurduseven@duke. planar microstrip patch arrays, illustrated in Fig. 2, with an 8 8
edu; [email protected]; [email protected]). array and a 4 4 array serving as Tx and Rx antennas, respec-
T. Zupan is with the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, Uni- tively. Both antennas were designed using low-loss 1.524-mm-
versity of Zagreb, Zagreb 10000, Croatia (e-mail: [email protected]).
M. S. Reynolds is with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Uni- thick Rogers 4003 substrate (r = 3.55 and tan = 0.0027).
versity of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195 USA (e-mail: matt.reynolds@ Investigating Fig. 2, it can be seen that different from the Rx
ee.washington.edu). antenna composed of edge-fed patches, the Tx antenna consists
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this letter are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. of inset-fed patches to better accommodate the varying-length
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/LAWP.2016.2542138 microstrip transmission lines. We designed the antennas to

1536-1225 2016 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
1866 IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 15, 2016

Fig. 1. Depiction of fields produced by a square aperture (D = 20 cm) within Fig. 3. One-dimensional plot of the simulated (dotted) and measured (solid)
the surrounding field regions. Focusing can be achieved in the Fresnel zone. normalized electric field magnitude plots at the focal plane.

Microwave Studio. It was observed that the antenna has a gain of

23.1 dBi with a radiation efficiency of 86% and an HPBW of 7.
Since the proposed WPT system operates in the Fresnel re-
gion, it is important to calculate the spot size or focus width
for the focused fields produced by the Tx aperture. This is an
important parameter for the design of the Rx antenna, which
will be discussed in Section III. From CST simulations, the
3-dB points (full-width at half-maximum, FWHM) of the elec-
tric field produced by the Tx antenna at the focal plane is found
to be 13.5 cm, providing a good estimate on the size of the Rx
Fig. 2. Patch array antennas. (a) 8 8 Tx array. (b) 4 4 Rx array (D T X = antenna needed to maximize transfer efficiency. The simulated
21.7 cm, D R X = 16 cm). and measured 1-D electric field plots to calculate the FWHM
points are shown in Fig. 3. For measurement, we used a planar
resonate at 5.8 GHz, a widely used Industrial, Scientific, and near-field scanning system (NSI 200V-33).
Medical (ISM) band. From standard diffraction theory, it is pos-
sible to obtain an estimate for the achievable focal spot size III. RECEIVING ANTENNA AND RECTIFIER DESIGN
radius (SS) based on the antenna geometry, focal length, and
An important aspect of the Rx design procedure is the opti-
wavelength of operation as given in the following equation [8]:
mization of the effective aperture size to maximally capture the
0.8868 |F | 0 power emitted from the Tx aperture. Ideally, the aperture size
SS = . (1)
D of the receiving antenna should be on the order of the FWHM
width of the focused electric field produced by the Tx antenna.
Here, |F | is the on-axis focal length along the optical axis, z. From the calculations of spot size in the earlier section, the re-
Each of the patch elements must be tuned to radiate with a phase ceiving antenna was designed with dimensions slightly larger
such that the collective interference pattern results in the desired to intercept the fields outside the 3-dB region, reducing the
focal spot. Computing the phase difference (or time delay) for spillover loss. We implement the Rx antenna using the 4 4
each of the radiating elements using the geometric length ap- patch array illustrated in Fig. 2(b). The Rx antenna utilizes iden-
proach [8][10], one can achieve constructive field interference tical patches and element spacing as the Tx antenna, having the
at a certain focal point, F (x, y, z), in the Fresnel region. To same resonance frequency of 5.8 GHz. The Rx antenna also has
perform this design, we choose an arbitrary focal point along uniform amplitude and phase distribution across the aperture,
the optical axis (on-axis), Fon = (0 cm, 0 cm, 40 cm), and cal- radiating in the broadside direction. As mentioned earlier for
culate the required phase distribution for the individual patch the Tx array, although the proposed WPT scheme works in the
elements within the Tx antenna array shown in Fig. 2(a). The Fresnel zone, full-wave far-field simulations of the Rx antenna
length of the microstrip transmission lines feeding the patches were performed to analyze its radiation characteristics, provid-
is adjusted accordingly to achieve focusing at Fon . When an ing a gain of 17.7 dBi with a radiation efficiency of 88% and an
antenna is designed conventionally, its parameters, such as an- HPBW of 20.7.
tenna gain, half-power beamwidth (HPBW) and radiation effi- An important component of a WPT system is the rectifier
ciency, are defined in the far-field region. Although this work used for harvesting power. Once the transmitted RF signal is
demonstrates Fresnel zone operation, it is still important to ana- received by the Rx antenna, it must be converted to a dc load
lyze these parameters to assess the performance of the Tx array. connected to the output terminal of the antenna. The combi-
Full-wave simulations of the Tx antenna were performed in CST nation of the rectifier with the antenna array is often termed a
GOWDA et al.: WIRELESS POWER TRANSFER IN RADIATIVE NEAR FIELD 1867

Fig. 4. HWR. (a) Schematic. (b) Microstrip implementation.

rectenna. We used Keysight ADS software to design an HWR

circuit relying on the Schottky barrier diode HSMS 8202. We
chose this diode due to its small threshold voltage and high rec- Fig. 5. Simulated (dashed) and measured (solid) |S 1 1 | (dB) patterns for Tx
tifying efficiency in the 5.8-GHz band [4]. A schematic circuit and Rx antennas, and HWR.
diagram of the HWR is shown in Fig. 4(a), and a microstrip
implementation of the proposed HWR circuit is depicted in
Fig. 4(b).
We performed a parametric study of the HWR circuit, vary-
ing the values of circuit elements in ADS. The study re-
sults indicated the optimum discharge time was achieved with
C1 = 10 pF and RL = 1 k. The impedance seen at the input
of the Rx antenna is Zin 50 , while the input impedance of
the diode is Zin = 2 j40 (under 13-dBm input power). To
maximize the power delivered to the load, we incorporated into
the rectifier board an impedance-matching circuit, as shown in
Fig. 4(a). Fig. 4(b) depicts a microstrip implementation of the
HWR. Starting from the RF connector, it consists of an open-
stub used for impedance matching between the diode and the Fig. 6. Simulated, normalized electric field patterns of the Tx antenna at the
focal plane. (a) On-axis focus at Fo n = (0 cm, 0 cm, 40 cm). (b) Off-axis focus
Rx microstrip patch antenna array. The shorted stub within the at Fo = (8 cm, 8 cm, 40 cm). The fields are plotted in a transparent fashion
matching network provides a dc path to the ground. The diode to show the Tx antenna in the background.
is connected to the end of the main transmission line, followed
by an RC load. Not shown in the figure is the LED connected
to the output terminal of the HWR (replacing RL ), serving as a
Tx apertures to achieve both on-axis and off-axis focusing (us-
dc load.
ing the geometric length approach discussed earlier). The on-
and off-axis focal points were chosen to be (in units of cm)
IV. EXPERIMENT AND RESULTS
Fon = (0, 0, 40) and Fo = (8, 8, 40), respectively, and the
To fabricate the Tx and Rx patch arrays, as well as the HWR focal plane field patterns are plotted in Fig. 6. In comparison
microstrip circuit, we patterned the desired structures into the to the on-axis configuration, providing a gain of 23.1 dBi and
top copper layer of a double-sided copper-clad Roger 4003 sub- a radiation efficiency of 86%, the off-axis configuration has a
strate using a U3 LPKF laser milling system. The radiation ef- gain of 20.1 dBi and a radiation efficiency of 83%.
ficiencies of the Tx and Rx array antennas were also measured We compared the WPT efficiency of our focusing array to
using the NSI near-field scanning system [11] and reported to be that of an unfocused array. For the latter, we fabricated a second
85% and 87%, respectively, providing good agreement with the 88 array, equal in size and element spacing to our focusing Tx
simulation results. The reflection coefficients (S11 ) of the Tx and array, but with a uniform phase distribution across all patches.
Rx antennas are shown in Fig. 5. From Fig. 5, we observe that This array provides a gain of 26.3 dBi and emulates a beam-
the simulated and measured S11 patterns are in good agreement. forming aperture that would typically be used to create a beam
The slight shift between simulation and measurement can be at- in the far-field zone. It should be noted here that the advantage of
tributed to overetching of the printed circuit board during the being able to control the radiated fields in range (and therefore
fabrication process. Fig. 5 also shows the S11 of the fabricated achieving a focus at F ) comes from the Fresnel zone operation.
HWR (under 13-dBm input power), which is below 10 dB at In the far field, however, both antennas would work as beam-
5.8 GHz, confirming the accuracy of the matching circuit. forming antennas with the ability to perform beam steering but
In a near-zone WPT scenario, the receiver may be positioned not focusing.
off of the optical axis of the Tx aperture. Therefore, it becomes The complete experimental setup is shown in Fig. 7(a). Our
necessary to demonstrate both on- and off-axis field focusing RF source is realized using a vector network analyzer (VNA)
for WPT applications. We designed and fabricated two separate outputting Pout = 20 mW(13 dBm). We used an RF amplifier
1868 IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 15, 2016

TABLE II
MEASURED TRANSMITTED THRESHOLD POWER VALUES
FOR LED LIGHTING

Direct On-Axis Off-Axis Beam-Forming

7.32 mW 40.2 mW 55.4 mW 66.3 mW

the required transmitted threshold power level for the off-axis

focusing configuration is 19.7% smaller compared to the beam-
Fig. 7. Fresnel zone WPT system. (a) Experimental setup for received power
measurement. (b) Powering an LED using the off-axis configuration at z = forming configuration.
40 cm.
V. CONCLUSION
TABLE I We have demonstrated a WPT scheme operating in the Fresnel
WPT EFFICIENCY VALUES FOR ON-AXIS (IN COMPARISON TO NO-FOCUSING
CASE) AND OFF-AXIS FOCUSING, RESPECTIVELY zone capable of focusing the radiated fields at a desired focal
point. We have achieved an increase by a factor of up to 66.8%
in the received power level as a result of Fresnel focusing.
Although 5.8-GHz ISM band has been chosen for this work, the
proposed Fresnel WPT scheme can readily be extended to higher
frequencies in order to increase the power transfer range, achieve
to increase the power fed to the Tx antenna, PTx , to 100 mW size reduction of the antennas, and obtain smaller focus regions.
(20 dBm). We then positioned the Rx array at the focus point, When used with dynamically reconfigurable apertures and some
connected it to a microwave power meter, and recorded the form of target tracking or serving, the proposed Fresnel WPT
received power, PRx . This procedure was repeated three times: scheme could offer significant advantages in that targets to be
once for the on-axis Tx array, again for the off-axis Tx array, powered could be in motion and power transfer can be achieved
and finally using the conventional on-axis beamforming array. in a dynamic manner.
The calculated WPT efficiencies, = PRx /PTx , are reported in
Table I for all three cases. REFERENCES
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