Investigation of ways of creation of high-efficiency rectennas
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICATT.1995.1234180Abstract
Development of microwave beam power transmission system (MBPTS) is one of the promising directions in future space electric power production. The efficiency of MBPTS depends in many respects on the efficiency of its terminal device, i.e. a rectenna. The paper presents the results of authors’ research on creating rectennas with a high efficiency.
Rectenna is an antenna array consisting of a large number of Receiving-Rectifying Elements (RRE) united in a Power-Collecting Circuit (PCC) of direct current. It is inherent to rectenna that its aperture is illuminated non-uniformly that provides a high value of the efficiency of microwave energy interception from the free space.
In the paper, the methods for calculating the efficiency of non-uniformly illuminated large-aperture rectennas are developed. It is shown that the equidistant distribution of similar RRE over the aperture results in significant losses in rectification and energy collection in the rectenna. The rectenna efficiency in this case is estimated to be at the level of 50%. One of the possible ways to rise the rectenna efficiency consists in leveling the RRE parameters through its aperture as equivalent parameters of direct current oscillators (DCO). Various means of the equivalent DCO parameters equalizing are considered. Their essence lies in filling up the rectenna aperture with dissimilar RRE according to certain rules.
The method of the efficiency increasing at the expense of non-equidistant RRE arrangement is considered in detail. It is shown that implementation of this method offers a possibility to create rectennas with the efficiency over 80%.
