Scalable X-band Rectenna Arrays for Energy-Denied Environments

Zoya Popovic (University of Colorado, Boulder, USA)

Biography: Zoya Popovic (S’86-M’90-SM’99-F’02) is a Distinguished Professor and the Lockheed Martin Endowed Chair in Electrical Engineering at the University of Colorado, Boulder. She obtained her Dipl. Ing. degree at the University of Belgrade, Serbia, and her Ph.D. at Caltech. She was a Visiting Professor with the Technical University of Munich in 2001/03, and Chair of Excellence at Carlos III University in Madrid in 2018/19. She has graduated over 70 doctoral students. Her research interests are in microwave and millimeter-wave high-performance III-V semiconductor circuits, medical applications of microwaves, wireless powering, industrial microwave applications and quantum RF sensing. She is a Fellow of the IEEE and the recipient of two IEEE MTT Microwave Prizes for best journal papers, the White House NSF Presidential Faculty Fellow award, the URSI Issac Koga Gold Medal, the ASEE/HP Terman Medal and the German Alexander von Humboldt Research Award. She was named IEEE MTT Distinguished Educator in 2013 and is a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors and a Member of the National Academy of Engineering.

Abstract: In this talk, the design and characterization of a scalable 10-GHz rectenna array is discussed, with applications in emergency power delivery from an airborne transmitter such as a UAV to a energy-denied environment (e.g. earthquake region at night). In such a scenario, it is desired to have easy deployment, low cost and easy storage. Additionally, scalability is important to accommodate varying power densities and electrical load needs. Demonstrations are presented for arrays that are 7, 20 and 33.3 square wavelengths in size with 25, 225 and 625 rectifying elements, respectively. Each rectifier is connected to 4 patch antennas, resulting in 2500 antenna elements for the largest array. The arrays are fabricated on foam supporting a flex single-sided metallized substrate, with a copper fabric ground plane, making scaling of flexible arrays possible.