The intense advancements of the Internet of Things (IoT) technologies are revolutionizing the connectivity between devices. However, seamless connectivity between devices is exceptionally challenging as battery life of the devices is a major concern. RF energy harvesting shows the appealing potential to minimize the dependability of conventional batteries while delivering energy. To address these challenges, this study presents an RF energy harvesting (RF-EH) system employing a rectenna that harvests RF energy specifically at 1.83 GHZ. The design includes a coaxial-fed circular microstrip antenna with a pair of symmetric arc-shaped DGS and a pair of symmetric circular geometry on a Rogers RT Duroid substrate. The 31.94% miniaturization and around 38.63 dB CP-XP isolation have been achieved from the proposed structure. The structure also incorporates a full-wave voltage multiplier alongside an inverse L-type lumped matching network that allows the structure to achieve a power conversion efficiency (PEC) of 28.1% at 0 dBm input power, resulting in an output voltage of 530 mV, and a PEC of 26.3% at − 5 dBm input power, yielding an output voltage of 912 mV at a 1 kΩ load resistance.