GaN HEMT based rectifier for spacecraft health monitoring system using microwave wireless power transfer

High power operable and miniaturized rectifier is one of the most important issues for spacecraft health monitoring system. This is because the flexibility of location, number, and power consumption regarding sensor tag is indispensable for reliable health monitoring. Previous single rectifiers focusing on schottky diode are unsuitable since operating at high power and considering integrated MMIC sensor tags are quite difficult. This research proposes GaN HEMT based rectifier for these issues due to its excellent properties such as structurally-preferable for MMIC, and suitable for high power operation. Design and evaluation of GaN HEMT based rectifier and an experiment using the rectifier and a thermal sensor with microwave wireless power transfer has been conducted. The proposed rectifier can be operated with 47 dBm input RF signal.