Wideband tapered monopole antenna with 2 by 2 resonant loop array for electromagnetic energy harvesting and microwave power transmission

This letter presents the development of a hybrid antenna for electromagnetic energy harvesting and microwave power transmission (MPT). The antenna was designed by mounting a 2 × 2 array resonant loop antennas on a wideband tapered monopole antenna with an etched hole and a patch on the other side. The induced loop resonances on the edges of the patch provide improved impedance matching in the harvesting band. In particular, the 2 × 2 array is mounted without increasing the size of harvesting antenna by using the ground space of it. In order to combine the harvesting and MPT antennas without affecting each other, a duplexing network, which consists of a band stop stub and a high pass filter, is employed. The harvesting antenna has wide 6 dB bandwidth of 0.62–1.3 GHz and 1.58–3.62 GHz. The radiation efficiency of 77–99% was measured in the whole harvesting band. In addition, a 2 × 2 array has a peak gain of 10.18 dBi and radiation efficiency of 89% at 5.8 GHz and operates as a MPT receiving antenna. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 59:797–802, 2017