Scavenging energy from human walking through a shoe-mounted piezoelectric harvester

This study presents a shoe-mounted nonlinear piezoelectric energy harvester (PEH) with intent to capture energy from human walking. The PEH consists of a piezoelectric cantilever beam magnetically coupled to a ferromagnetic ball and a crossbeam. A sleeve is included to guide the travel of the ball. Experimental measurements and theoretical simulations demonstrate that the proposed design can collect energy from diverse excitation sources with different directions produced by the foot, including vibrations, swing motions, and the compressive force. The ball and the crossbeam sense the swing motion and the compressive force, respectively, and then actuate the piezoelectric beam to function. The piezoelectric beam senses the vibration along the tibial axis and generates electricity. The proposed PEH achieves the superposition of these excitations and generates multiple peaks in voltage output within one gait cycle. The output power generated by the fabricated prototype ranges from 0.03 mW to 0.35 mW when the...

[1]  Yiannos Manoli,et al.  Energy harvesting from human motion: exploiting swing and shock excitations , 2015 .

[2]  J. Zu,et al.  An innovative tri-directional broadband piezoelectric energy harvester , 2013 .

[3]  Christopher A Howells,et al.  Piezoelectric energy harvesting , 2009 .

[4]  Nan-Chyuan Tsai,et al.  Human powered MEMS-based energy harvest devices , 2012 .

[5]  E. Yeatman,et al.  A scalable piezoelectric impulse-excited energy harvester for human body excitation , 2012 .

[6]  Yaowen Yang,et al.  Comparative study of tip cross-sections for efficient galloping energy harvesting , 2013 .

[7]  Witold Pedrycz,et al.  A nonlinear piezoelectric energy harvester for various mechanical motions , 2015 .

[8]  Thad Starner,et al.  Human-Powered Wearable Computing , 1996, IBM Syst. J..

[9]  Joseph A. Paradiso,et al.  Energy Scavenging with Shoe-Mounted Piezoelectrics , 2001, IEEE Micro.

[10]  Yang Kuang,et al.  Characterisation of a knee-joint energy harvester powering a wireless communication sensing node , 2016 .

[11]  Kevin M. Farinholt,et al.  Energy harvesting from a backpack instrumented with piezoelectric shoulder straps , 2007 .

[12]  L. Moro,et al.  Harvested power and sensitivity analysis of vibrating shoe-mounted piezoelectric cantilevers , 2010 .

[13]  J. A. Hoffer,et al.  Biomechanical Energy Harvesting: Generating Electricity During Walking with Minimal User Effort , 2008, Science.

[14]  Yaowen Yang,et al.  A nonlinear piezoelectric energy harvester with magnetic oscillator , 2012 .

[15]  Witold Pedrycz,et al.  Design and development of a multipurpose piezoelectric energy harvester , 2015 .

[16]  D. Inman,et al.  A piezomagnetoelastic structure for broadband vibration energy harvesting , 2009 .

[17]  D. Winter.  Foot trajectory in human gait: a precise and multifactorial motor control task. , 1992, Physical therapy.

[18]  Meiling Zhu,et al.  Plucked piezoelectric bimorphs for knee-joint energy harvesting: modelling and experimental validation , 2011 .

[19]  Jari Juuti,et al.  Combined electrical and electromechanical simulations of a piezoelectric cymbal harvester for energy harvesting from walking , 2014 .

[20]  B. Alphenaar,et al.  SMART MATERIALS AND STRUCTURES , 2009 .

[21]  Kwang-Seok Yun,et al.  Effect of garment design on piezoelectricity harvesting from joint movement , 2016 .

[22]  Taeseung D. Yoo,et al.  Generating Electricity While Walking with Loads , 2022 .

[23]  Guang Zhu,et al.  Converting biomechanical energy into electricity by a muscle-movement-driven nanogenerator. , 2009, Nano letters.

[24]  Jérémie Voix,et al.  Flexible piezoelectric energy harvesting from jaw movements , 2014 .