Energy Harvesting at the Human Body

Mateu, Loreto; Drager, Tobias; Mayordomo, Iker; Pollak, Markus

doi:10.1016/b978-0-12-418662-0.00004-0

Cited by 13 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…decrease in size and power consumption of electronic devices. [1] Many devices with communication abilities such as wearable devices and wireless sensor networks are created. However, most of these devices are powered by batteries, thus its lifespan and stability of power are restricted.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Ultrathin Flexible Single‐Electrode Triboelectric‐Nanogenerator for Mechanical Energy Harvesting and Instantaneous Force Sensing

Chen

Cao

Wang

et al. 2016

Advanced Energy Materials

187

116

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The trends in miniaturization of electronic devices give rise to the attention of energy harvesting technologies that gathers tiny wattages of power. Here this study demonstrates an ultrathin flexible single electrode triboelectric nanogenerator (S‐TENG) which not only could harvest mechanical energy from human movements and ambient sources, but also could sense instantaneous force without extra energy. The S‐TENG, which features an extremely simple structure, has an average output current of 78 μA, lightening up at least 70 LEDs (light‐emitting diode). Even tapped by bare finger, it exhibits an output current of 1 μA. The detection sensitivity for instantaneous force sensing is about 0.947 μA MPa−1. Performances of the device are also systematically investigated under various motion types, press force, and triboelectric materials. The S‐TENG has great application prospects in sustainable wearable devices, sustainable medical devices, and smart wireless sensor networks owning to its thinness, light weight, energy harvesting, and sensing capacities.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Ultrathin Flexible Single‐Electrode Triboelectric‐Nanogenerator for Mechanical Energy Harvesting and Instantaneous Force Sensing

Chen

Cao

Wang

et al. 2016

Advanced Energy Materials

187

116

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“…While passive energy is harvested from the patient's or user's everyday actions, such as breathing or walking motions, active energy harvesting requires activities the person especially executes for harvesting. [10] Since for passive energy harvesting the user is not consciously aware of the energy conversion process, it has the least impact on the patient's living conditions and is therefore focused in the research presented in this paper.…”

Section: Human Body Energy Harvestingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Various approaches to harvest energy from the human body using different underlying physical principles have been proposed in literature. Investigations show the feasibility of different harvesting concepts, including the harvesting of mechanical energy from body movements using piezoelectric elements in various in-and on-body positions, the harvesting of thermal energy from temperature differences using the Seebeck Effect or the harvesting of biochemical energy based on electrochemical reactions processing glucose or oxygen [9][10][11]. Human body fluids in particular present a specific potential source of energy that has been investigated in research.…”

Section: Human Body Energy Harvestingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Intraurethral Energy Harvesting from Urine Flow as an Approach to Power Urologic Implants

Benke

Stoinski

Preis

et al. 2021

2021 43rd Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine &Amp; Biology Society (EMBC)

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Active urologic implants, such as bladder stimulators or artificial sphincters, are a widely-used approach for therapy of urinary incontinence. At present these devices are powered by primary batteries or conventional wireless power transferring techniques. As these methods are associated with several limitations, human body energy harvesting can be a promising alternative or complement for power supply. This paper introduces an approach to harvest energy from the urine flow inside the urethra with a mechatronic harvesting system based on a hubless flow turbine. Using a test bench approximating the flow conditions of the lower urinary tract, the feasibility of the harvesting principle is shown in-vitro.Clinical Relevance-Intraurethral energy harvesting to power implants for therapy of urinary incontinence can contribute to extend implantation times and thus avoid invasive surgical procedures. I. INTRODUCTIONA. Urinary Incontinence Urinary incontinence (UI), which refers to any involuntary loss of urine, is a highly prevalent condition significantly affecting the patients' quality of life and represents highly relevant socio-economic problem [1]. Patients are reported to be more likely to limit social contact [1, 2] and suffer from exhaustion, depression and anxiety [3]. The estimated prevalence of UI is reported to range from 25 % to 45 % in different studies, while it is more prevalent among women and the proportion of affected patients is rising with increasing age [4]. However, determination of the exact numbers of patients is difficult due to the tabooing nature of the topic. With the demographic change taking place in many industrialized countries and the increasing average age of the population, a rising incidence of urinary incontinence is expected. [5] To treat UI conditions, conservative methods, such as training of the pelvic floor muscles, can be used. In severe cases surgical implantation of an artificial urinary sphincter is considered, which, however, is associated with a high complication rate and requires a complex invasive procedure. [6,7]

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“…The human skin therefore responds to both dynamic and static or quasi-static stimuli through FAs and SAs [2][3][4][5][6][7]. Since SAs continue to generate spikes throughout the static or quasistatic events (figure 1b), the neuromorphic approach in eSkin is fundamentally different from the event-driven approaches that are widely explored today in context with vision and other sensory modalities [2][3][4][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]. This neural computing aspect of human skin (hereafter referred to as 'skin' only) is discussed later in this section.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Another way of reducing or managing the tactile data in eSkin and attaining efficient computation is to acquire the tactile data from contact area only. There is need for development of energy transfer technologies such as new wireless protocols [8][9][10]25,26].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Soft eSkin: distributed touch sensing with harmonized energy and computing

Soni

Dahiya

2019

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A.

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Inspired by biology, significant advances have been made in the field of electronic skin (eSkin) or tactile skin. Many of these advances have come through mimicking the morphology of human skin and by distributing few touch sensors in an area. However, the complexity of human skin goes beyond mimicking few morphological features or using few sensors. For example, embedded computing (e.g. processing of tactile data at the point of contact) is centric to the human skin as some neuroscience studies show. Likewise, distributed cell or molecular energy is a key feature of human skin. The eSkin with such features, along with distributed and embedded sensors/electronics on soft substrates, is an interesting topic to explore. These features also make eSkin significantly different from conventional computing. For example, unlike conventional centralized computing enabled by miniaturized chips, the eSkin could be seen as a flexible and wearable large area computer with distributed sensors and harmonized energy. This paper discusses these advanced features in eSkin, particularly the distributed sensing harmoniously integrated with energy harvesters, storage devices and distributed computing to read and locally process the tactile sensory data. Rapid advances in neuromorphic hardware, flexible energy generation, energy-conscious electronics, flexible and printed electronics are also discussed. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Harmonizing energy-autonomous computing and intelligence’.

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Energy Harvesting at the Human Body

Cited by 13 publications

References 45 publications

An Ultrathin Flexible Single‐Electrode Triboelectric‐Nanogenerator for Mechanical Energy Harvesting and Instantaneous Force Sensing

An Ultrathin Flexible Single‐Electrode Triboelectric‐Nanogenerator for Mechanical Energy Harvesting and Instantaneous Force Sensing

Intraurethral Energy Harvesting from Urine Flow as an Approach to Power Urologic Implants

Soft eSkin: distributed touch sensing with harmonized energy and computing

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