ECE.17R – 5G Energy Harvester

• Josh Czorniak
• Justin Keys
• Adam Mukahhal
• Aaron Rodriguez

As the world progresses with technological advancements, the role of engineers becomes crucial in integrating these ideas and concepts into our day-to-day lifestyles. However, in 2023, the percentage of students that pursued engineering as their field of study is only 5% among all other academic disciplines. This statistic poses a concern given the ever-growing technological advances in our society today. This is why we planned to engage with students from high school and community colleges to showcase the opportunities an ECE degree from the UIC College of Engineering can offer. The project explored and demonstrated the concept of 5G Energy Harvesting with a rectenna, a device that can “catch” 5G signals in the air and transform them into electricity. Just like a solar panel captures sunlight and turns it into power, this device harvests the energy from signals in the 5G midband (1GHz-6GHz). The design consists of a linear patch antenna array that resonates at the wifi frequency of 2.4GHz to capture signals from the surrounding environment. The captured signals are then filtered through a rectifying circuit and finally stored in a capacitor where the user is able to use the stored energy to turn on an LED. Under 15dBm (~32mW) of power, our rectenna is able to light a red LED. Users can interact with the rectenna’s ability to harvest energy by changing the distance of the device from a signal source, or to use a shielding box that we have built to attenuate incoming signals. Since rectennas are on the frontier of ECE research, we hope that by allowing prospective engineering students to interact with technology of the future they may become a part of building that future.