In this paper, the energy recovery in microstrip passive circuits from the power losses into heat is studied. For this purpose, a thermoelectric generator (TEG) based on the Seebeck effect principle is used, which converts part of the power dissipated into heat to dc electrical power. A solution integrating the TEG with the microstrip circuit is proposed, and design guidelines in order to optimize the recovered power keeping a good isolation between the RF signal and the TEG system are provided. As will be shown, under moderate applied signal powers of just 1–5 W, the levels of recovered power in microstrip passive circuits can be notable. As a demonstrator circuit, an integration device formed by an embedded microstrip bandpass filter for WiMAX applications and a TEG is designed, fabricated, and characterized (thermal and electrically). Different scenarios are considered, depending on frequency and thermal loads. For an applied inband CW input signal power of 2 W at 3.48 GHz, a recovered power of around 250 μW has been continuously supplied to the electrical load. Several aspects, such as efficiency and future improvements, are also discussed.

This work was supported by the Euripides European Project MIDIMU-HD.