Energy harvesting from human motions for wearable applications

Abstract

Harvesting biomechanical energy from human's movement is an alternative solution to effectively power the wearable electronics. In this paper, two impact-driven piezoelectric energy harvesters were developed which can be integrated within human shoe-soles and also can be tailored to integrate in commercial carpets or outdoor roadway to harvest the massive mechanical energy from the passing vehicles or people crowds at low frequencies. For a comprehensive study, two buckling types of PVDF harvesters were selected and tested. It has been shown that the mechanical responses of the arch type prototype and the C type prototype are different. In addition, the mechanical response of the C type can be affected by the vertical height of the C type. The peak-peak voltage of the C type increases with the vertical height of the C type decreases. The peak-peak voltage of arch type is almost the same with the C type when the vertical height of which is 25 mm. The stability of the output voltage of the arch type is the worst when compared with that of the three C types. The stability of the output voltage of the C type when the vertical height of which is 25 mm is the worst among the three different vertical heights.