High-Efficiency Electromagnetic Translational–Rotary Harvester for Human Motion Impact Energy

Abstract

This paper presents an electromagnetic translational–rotary motion impact energy harvester based on a magnetic cylinder rotated around a fixed magnetic ring. It is beneficial for capturing impact energy generated by natural human motions, such as clapping, boxing, and stomping. The energy harvester consists of a circular housing, twelve coils, a magnetic cylinder, and a magnetic ring. Once activated, the magnetic cylinder revolves and rotates around the magnetic ring, inducing a significantly large electromotive force across the twelve coils. According to Faraday’s law, the output voltage generated by the coils is proportional to the turns, enabling the efficient harvesting of biomechanical waste energy. Moreover, the energy harvester can convert translational motion from any orientation into a multi-circle rotational motion of the low-damping magnetic cylinder, which passes through twelve coils and applies a variable magnetic field across them. During a single excitation event, the prototype harvester was able to charge a 470 μF, 25 V capacitor to over 0.81 V in just 39.5 ms. The energy output and effective average power were calculated to exceed 0.15 mJ and 3.80 mW, respectively.