Energy Generation and Accumulation by Fully Integrated Human Motion Energy Harvester
Proceedings of the 3rd Renewable Energy Sources - Research and Business Conference: Book of Abstracts 2018
Juris Blūms, Ilgvars Gorņevs, Vilnis Jurķāns

A completely wearable human motion energy harvesting with corresponding power management and energy accumulation system, capable of autonomous work and producing stable output in few volts range on a storage capacitor, is presented for the first time. Main parts of the developed human motion energy harvester are flat, spiral-shaped inductors and permanent magnets. Voltage pulses in such flat inductors can be induced during the motion of a permanent magnet along its surface. Such motion type is the most suitable for apparel, since separate parts do not need direct contact, only relative motion. Due to the flat structure, inductors can be completely integrated into the parts of the clothes and it is not necessary to allocate extra place for movement of the magnet as in usual electromagnetic harvesters. The average power up to 0,5 mW is developed during the walking tests by such harvesters, integrated into different types of the apparel. It was approved by testing different prototypes of clothes with energy harvesters that voltage of generated impulses is high enough to be effectively rectified with commercially available diodes and a part of generated energy can be stored for further usage. Power management and energy accumulation systems consisting of commercially available components are tested. It was shown by walking tests that efficiency of different constructed systems strongly depends on properties of controlling circuit and movement intensity. Up to 13% of generated energy was stored on capacitor in experiments with power management solutions made of commercially available components, obtained voltage level and energy proved that proposed human motion energy harvester can be sufficient for powering low power electronics.


Keywords
microwatt power management; human motion energy harvesting; wearable electronics; electromagnetic transducers; flat inductors
Hyperlink
http://resrb.budzianowski.eu/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2017/11/Proceedings-3rd-RESRB-2018.pdf

Blūms, J., Gorņevs, I., Jurķāns, V. Energy Generation and Accumulation by Fully Integrated Human Motion Energy Harvester. In: Proceedings of the 3rd Renewable Energy Sources - Research and Business Conference: Book of Abstracts, Belgium, Brisele, 18-20 June, 2018. Wrocław: 2018, pp.47-48. ISBN 978-83-948507-2-2.

Publication language
English (en)
The Scientific Library of the Riga Technical University.
E-mail: uzzinas@rtu.lv; Phone: +371 28399196