A solar‐powered 2.4 GHz injection‐locked oscillator for RF amplification

A 2.4 GHz solar‐powered injection‐locked oscillator (ILO) is developed to boost harvested low‐power radiofrequency (RF) signals for energy harvesting applications. This work proposes a solar‐powered ILO with self‐powering that has a high power efficiency. A solar panel with a regulator circuit directly converts solar power into the electrical power of the ILO. The presented ILO design is based on a single‐ended Clapp oscillator. A direct injection method is used to reduce the power that is consumed by the ILO. The ILO is designed and implemented using Agilent's GaAs HEMT ATF55143. Measurements of the solar‐powered ILO are made and its amplification, or gain, performance is studied; the gain is 18.7 dB. The supply voltage that is applied to the ILO is 1.5 V and the power consumption (PDC) is 1.5 mW.