Energy harvesting technologies collect a very small amount of power for low-energy electronics, this rectenna is one of the latest advancements in this area.

“The word ‘rectenna’ is the combination of the abbreviated words ‘rectifying’ and ‘antenna’ and it basically converts radio waves into electricity.”

“Today we are exhibiting on the theme of environmental electricity, with exhibits in two areas of collecting wireless LAN and digital terrestrial broadcast signals. Our concept is to collect electricity by collecting electrical waves within the office or at home, or by attaching this rectenna to an outside wall.”

The rectenna, developed by Nihon Dengyo Kosaku, is relatively thin, at 12mm for Wi-Fi and 30mm for digital terrestrial broadcast waves, and uses only 50µW of power to start.

“With wireless LANs, it can generate power in the order of micro-watts at a distance of around 10cm. Recently there are computers that can operate on power in the micro-watt range, so we think that by using that people could power sensors or tag devices.”

They harvested about 1.2mV and 0.06µW of power inside the exhibition hall at Tokyo Big Sight, from digital terrestrial broadcast signals sent from Tokyo Tower which is about 5.5km away.

“If you are close to Tokyo Tower you can obtain 6mW of power, in the order of milliwatts, but at a distance of 3 or 4 kilometers it is in the order of micro-watts, at around 35µW.”

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