5G as a wireless power grid

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 11; no. 1; pp. 636 - 9
• Main Authors: Eid, Aline, Hester, Jimmy G. D., Tentzeris, Manos M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 12.01.2021; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 639/166/987; 639/4077/4072/4062; Antennas; Arrays; Design; Energy; Humanities and Social Sciences; Internet of Things; Latency; multidisciplinary; Radio frequency identification; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Wave power
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-79500-x

5G has been designed for blazing fast and low-latency communications. To do so, mm-wave frequencies were adopted and allowed unprecedently high radiated power densities by the FCC. Unknowingly, the architects of 5G have, thereby, created a wireless power grid capable of powering devices at ranges far exceeding the capabilities of any existing technologies. However, this potential could only be realized if a fundamental trade-off in wireless energy harvesting could be circumvented. Here, we propose a solution that breaks the usual paradigm, imprisoned in the trade-off between rectenna angular coverage and turn-on sensitivity. The concept relies on the implementation of a Rotman lens between the antennas and the rectifiers. The printed, flexible mm-wave lens allows robust and bending-resilient operation over more than 20 GHz of gain and angular bandwidths. Antenna sub-arrays, rectifiers and DC combiners are then added to the structure to demonstrate its combination of large angular coverage and turn-on sensitivity—in both planar and bent conditions—and a harvesting ability up to a distance of 2.83 m in its current configuration and exceeding 180 m using state-of-the-art rectifiers enabling the harvesting of several μW of DC power (around 6 μW at 180 m with 75 dBm EIRP).