Modern compact and low power sensors and systems are leading towards increasingly integrated wearable systems. One key bottleneck of this technology is the power supply. The use of energy harvesting techniques offers a way of supplying sensor systems without the need for batteries and maintenance. In this work we present the development and characterization of two inductive energy harvesters which exploit different characteristics of the human gait. A multi-coil topology harvester is presented which uses the swing motion of the foot. The second device is a shocktype harvester which is excited into resonance upon heel strike. Both devices were modeled and designed with the key constraint of device height in mind, in order to facilitate the integration into the shoe sole. The devices were characterized under different motion speeds and with two test subjects on a treadmill. An average power output of up to 0.84 mW is achieved with the swing harvester. With a total device volume including the housing of 21 cm 3 a power density of 40 μW cm −3 results. The shock harvester generates an average power output of up to 4.13 mW. The power density amounts to 86 μW cm −3 for the total device volume of 48 cm 3 . Difficulties and potential improvements are discussed briefly.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

Energy harvesting from human motion has constantly attracted scientific interest over recent years. A location where a harvesting device can easily and unobtrusively be integrated is the shoe sole, which also protects the device from exterior influences. In this work a numerical system model is developed, which can be used to simulate different inductive harvester geometries and predict their power output. Real world acceleration data is used as a model input. The model is implemented in Matlab/Simulink and subdivided into a mechanical and an electromagnetic model. The key features including the motion model and the calculation of the electromagnetic coupling coefficient are explained in detail and the model is briefly evaluated experimentally. A total of six inductive architectures, i.e. different cylindrical and rectangular magnet-coil arrangements, are then investigated in detail. The geometrical parameters are optimized for each architecture to find the best geometry within the size of 71 mm × 37.5 mm × 12.5 mm, which can be integrated into the sole. With the best overall design an average power output of 42.7 mW is simulated across an ohmic load of 41 Ohms. In addition to the respective best designs, the (dis-)advantages of each architecture are explained.