2017 11th European Conference on Antennas and Propagation (EUCAP)

Feasibility of Electromagnetic Energy Harvesting

Using Wearable Textile Antennas
Branimir Ivi, Mateja Babi, Andrej Galoi, Davor Bonefai
Department for Wireless Communications
University of Zagreb, FER
Zagreb, Croatia
branimir.ivsic@fer.hr, mateja.babic@fer.hr, andrej.galoic@fer.hr, davor.bonefacic@fer.hr

AbstractIn this paper the quantity of available
environmental electromagnetic energy in typical urban scenario
is investigated. Measurements of the EM power density were
performed at several indoor and outdoor locations. The findings
are applied to estimate the available power on typical wearable
textile antenna.
Keywords Textile antennas, On-body sensors, Environmental
electomagnetic energy, energy harvesting
be checked. To this purpose we perform measurements in
representative indoor and outdoor spaces, where we measure
the available electromagnetic power density. In the next part
of the paper we present wearable logarithmic spiral antenna
[5] and estimate the available power on its terminals. Using
the wideband antenna one is able to collect power from
various sources at once so the total available power is
increased, at least in principle.

II. FIELD MEASUREMENTS

I. INTRODUCTION
The idea of harvesting electromagnetic energy arises from
the presence of abundant signals of the existing
communication systems (DVB-T, LTE, GSM, WLAN etc.) in
space, the energy of which can be collected, rectified and
stored. Such research is quite extensive nowadays in the area
of on-body sensors since it addresses the question of power
supply and energy independency of the system. Namely, using
conventional batteries with high capacity needed to handle
ever-growing data rates generally would make the wearable
devices too bulky and obtrusive, so by using ambient sources
to collect energy as much as possible (kinetic energy, solar
energy, electromagnetic energy etc.) one would reduce or,
ideally, eliminate demands on batteries [1-3]. One of the
advantages of collecting the electromagnetic energy is in its
continuous presence both in indoor and outdoor urban space.
For wearable communication systems this also means that the
amount of collected energy does not depend on the user
activities, thus the electromagnetic energy is a reliable source.
This is in contrast with other energy sources, where energy is
present only in certain times of the day (solar energy) or where
the energy is present only when user is walking or running
(kinetic energy) [1].
The typical energy harvesting device consists of the
antenna and rectifying circuit which converts collected AC
power into DC one. This is followed by some storage device
such as capacitor or battery. Most of the research [1-3] is
devoted to AC-DC conversion efficiency, with various designs
of matching circuits between antenna and rectifier. Due to
nonlinearity of diodes in rectifying circuits matching is
obtained for some amount of available power which is
however usually obtained in laboratory conditions [3, 4].
In this paper the idea is to estimate the realistic quantity of
the available electromagnetic energy in the environment so
that the feasibility of the whole energy harvesting process can
The measurements of available environmental power
density were performed using spectrum analyzer and calibrated
electromagnetic sensor FieldNose [6], by which the powers of
three orthogonal field polarizations of the field in space are
measured and subsequently added. The power density at some
point is calculated as:
Sinc = Preceived + AF + Acable 38.77 , (1)
where Sinc is the sought power density in [dBW/m2]; Preceived is
the total received power in [dBm]; AF is the known antenna
factor in [dB/m], while Acable is cable loss in [dB].
The measured frequency ranges together with respective
sources of environmental power in each of them are given in
Table I. For these ranges the total power is measured and the
available power density calculated from (1). The chosen
locations (City of Zagreb, Croatia) are given in Table II and
illustrated in Figs 1 and 2. These are typical indoor and outdoor
locations where the user resides during his daily activities
which makes the measured power density relevant for further
estimation of the quantity of available energy in space. The
measured power densities are given in Figs 3 and 4 for indoor
and outdoor locations, respectively. It can be seen that largest
power densities occur in GSM band, while in outdoor spaces
the measured power density is generally larger than in indoor
ones.
III. THE PROPOSED ANTENNA
Since the energy harvesting device is intended to be worn
on human body, the choice of the antenna also plays role in the
system design. Namely, the antenna should be able to conform
to human body and retain its aesthetic appeal. In [4, 5], as a fair
compromise we have chosen logarithmic spiral antenna which
at the same time exhibits wide frequency bandwidth [7] needed
to collect energy from various sources, while it can be put onto

This work has been fully supported by Croatian Science Foundation

under the project 6198 Textile Antennas for Smart Environment.

978-88-907018-7-0/17/$31.00 2017 IEEE 485 #1570318604

 2017 11th European Conference on Antennas and Propagation (EUCAP)

the outer layer of clothes which makes it unobtrusive and -20

40

aesthetically acceptable (basically it looks like an emblem). -25

35

The antenna is created by embroidering conductive textiles [8,

Measured power density

-30
30

9] into denim fabric, as shown in Fig. 5, while the detailed -35

25
DTV
specification of its design procedure is provided in [5]. As a

[dBW/m2]
-40
20
LTE&GSM 900
convenient and detachable transition between the textile -45
15
GSM 1800&UMTS
antenna and the outer circuitry we have used two snap-on -50
10
WiFi
buttons [10], while for the measurement purposes (50 -555

system) we have designed an additional exponentially tapered -600

balun. Note that the total surface occupancy of the final 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Location No. (indoor)
antenna version is 47 cm 34 cm which is a good compromise
between the allowed antenna size (it needs to fit onto the
average human torso) and demand for good coverage of UHF Fig. 3. Measured power density in indoor locations (location numbering
frequencies where sources such as GSM and digital television according to Table II)
are present and which represent significant portion of currently
available electromagnetic energy in space. 40
-20
35
-25

Measured power density

TABLE I. THE OBSERVED FREQUENCY RANGES 30
-30

-35
25
Frequency range [MHz] Source of power

[dBW/m2]
DTV
470790 Digital television -40
20
LTE&GSM 900
790970 LTE; GSM 900 -45
15 GSM 1800&UMTS
18002200 GSM 1800; UMTS -50 WiFi
10
24002500 WiFi
-555

TABLE II. LOCATIONS OF FIELD MEASUREMENTS
Location
No. Description
(indoor)
1 Lecture room
2 Office 1
3 Office 2
4 Office 3
5 Faculty hall
6 Faculty entrance area
7 Lecture room 2
8 Caffe bar
9 Library
-600
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Location Location No. (outdoor)
No. Description
(outdoor)
1 Parking lot Fig. 4. Measured power density in outdoor locations (location numbering
2 Faculty terrace according to Table II)
3 Public park 1
4 Caffe bar terrace 1
5 Pedestrian underpass
6 Semi-outdoor patio
7 Public park 2
8 Caffe bar terrace 2

Fig. 5. The prototype of textile logarithmic spiral antenna. Left: Overview;

right: Antenna placed on human body. The balun serves for measuring
purposes. [5]

Fig. 1. Measurements in indoor locations. From left to the right: Lecture

room, faculty entrance area, caffe bar A. Antenna characterization
The measured magnitude of input reflection coefficient of
the antenna and balun is given in Fig. 6. It can be seen that the
obtained input impedance matching provides good coverage of
the frequency ranges of interest (Table II). Since the antenna is
assumed to be circularly polarized in the direction of spiral
looked from behind [7], for further characterization we have
used calibrated circularly polarized horn antenna. The
measured broadside gain (i.e. in +x-direction from Fig. 5) is
given in Fig. 7 for frequencies between 2 GHz and 8 GHz (the
measuring frequency range is reduced due to characteristics of
Fig. 2. Measurements in outdoor locations. From left to the right: Parking lot,
public park, caffe bar (terrace) calibrated test antenna [11]). Both left-hand (co-polarization)

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 2017 11th European Conference on Antennas and Propagation (EUCAP)

and right-hand (cross-polarization) circular polarizations have
been considered.
The measured gain for the case of co-polarization excitation
is around 0 to 1 dBi within the most portion of the operating
range. This is around 2 dB lower than the gain predicted by
simulations and occurs due to losses in textile but also due to
imperfections and radiation losses in balun [5]. This means that
in reality (when harvesting circuit is attached directly onto the
antenna) one can expect somewhat larger gain. In addition, the
obtained gain is in line with similar textile antenna realizations
[10]. Note that this value of gain is also relevant when the
antenna is put onto the outer layer of clothes such as on jacket
(distance 1.52 cm) as it was found in [5].
-6
-8
-10
|S11| [dB]
where G is the antenna gain and is the operating wavelength.
For the following calculations we assume that the antenna gain
is 1 dBi across the frequency range of interest (this is a safe and
fair assumption based on measurements and CST simulations
[4, 5] where it was found that the antenna gain exhibits little
changes over the antenna operating bandwidth), while the
effective area is calculated at the central frequency of each
observed band. By calculating the average available power
density for each observed frequency range (Table II) and by
knowledge of the antenna effective area we can finally assess
the available power which can be collected with particular
antenna. The results are summarized in Table III. It can be seen
that the largest available power density occurs in GSM 1800
and UMTS band due to larger power of the devices in that band
(on the other hand, the smallest power density occurs in the
unlicensed ISM band). As for the available power at the
antenna, it is of the order of microwatts for all the observed
frequency ranges while the largest available power occurs in
the lower frequency (UHF) range as expected, due to larger
antenna effective area. Although by using the antenna with
somewhat larger gain some improvements in the available

power can be obtained, the presented estimated order of

-12 magnitude of available power is realistic and can be used as a
guideline in design of harvesting circuits. From the presented
-14 calculation of the available power it can be seen that the
electromagnetic energy harvesting circuit can primarily serve
-16 as an auxiliary power source for operation of low-power on-
body sensors and hence reduce (or even eliminate) the
-18 demands on sensor batteries. Nevertheless, for mobile phones
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 or similar devices where the demanded power is significantly
frequency [GHz]
larger, collecting electromagnetic energy needs to be
Fig. 6. Measured magnitude of input reflection coefficient of the setup complemented with other environmental energy sources (such
containing antenna and balun as kinetic energy of walking) to obtain observable quantities of
energy needed for charging.

4
Copolarization TABLE III. CALCULATION OF THE AVAILABLE ANTENNA POWER
2 Crosspolarization Average
Available
Central measured Antenna
0 Source of power at
frequency power effective
power the antenna
[MHz] density area [m2]
Gain [dBi]

[dBm]
-2 [dBW/m2]
Digital
630 -33.74 0.023 -20.12
-4 television
LTE; GSM
880 -30.89 0.012 -20.01
-6 900
GSM 1800;
2000 -28.85 0.00225 -25.33
-8 UMTS
WiFi 2450 -34.24 0.00149 -32.51
-10
2 3 4 5 6 7 8
frequency [GHz] IV. CONCLUSION
In this paper we have estimated the quantity of
Fig. 7. Measured broadside gain of the textile antenna prototype in free space
electromagnetic energy which is available in the typical urban
environment. The relevant quantity is the available power
B. Discussion density which is independent of the used antenna and it was
Since the antenna is intended to operate in the receiving measured using calibrated electromagnetic sensor at several
mode, to estimate the quantity of the available electromagnetic indoor and outdoor locations. These findings were applied to
energy we calculate the antenna effective area as [12]: the proposed textile wearable antenna to estimate the realistic
available power. It was found that the collected power is of the
2 order of microwatts and hence can serve as a complementary
Ae f = G , (2) source for powering low-power sensor.
4

487 #1570318604
 2017 11th European Conference on Antennas and Propagation (EUCAP)

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2016, pp. 1-5, Dubrovnik (Croatia), 2016
the collected energy from the antenna would be stored. Due to
[6] (2016) Specifications of Field Nose sensor. [Online]. Available:
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estimated expected power in reality can facilitate the overall [7] W. Wiesbeck, G. Adamiuk, C. Sturm, Basic properties and design
harvester design. principles of UWB antennas, Proceedings of the IEEE, Vol. 97, No. 2,
pp. 372-385, 2009.
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