Compact rectenna for space application

This paper addresses an ultra-compact (2.8 cm²) and wide bandwidth rectenna operating in the extended Ku-band. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed rectenna can harvest a DC power ranging from 0.125 mW to 1.43 mW for frequencies between 14.5 GHz to 19.5 GHz and for resistive loads between 250 Ω and 4 kΩ. A maximum conversion efficiency of 55.3 % is obtained at 16.05 GHz for an incident power density around of 1.26 mW/cm². It is the first time, to the authors´ knowledge, that such high harvesting performances are obtained using an ultra-compact Ku-band rectenna.