Getting Fit in a Sustainable Way: Design and Optimization of a Low-Cost Regenerative Exercise Bicycle

Abstract

With the increase in demand for more sustainable energy sources, recent researchers have been looking into harvesting energy spent by humans for various purposes. One of the available sources of such energy is exercise equipment. While a few products are available in the market to harvest the power expended during an exercise session, these products are costly, and the cost may prohibit a day-to-day user from purchasing those. Motivated by this challenge, this paper describes a long-running research project that uses a static exercise bicycle to sustainably harvest human energy. A regenerative spin bike that uses the friction between a flywheel and a BaneBots wheel was designed and deployed. For the motor mount, two methods are investigated: linear preloading and rotary preloading. A commercially available indoor static bicycle is modified to incorporate the flywheel and the motor attachment. The generated electricity is converted to DC using a three-phase rectifier. A car charger is used for charging any devices attached to the setup. The resulting configuration is very effective in operating small electronic devices. This setup, which uses only off-the-shelf components, can be considered a replacement for its expensive custom-made counterparts.

Converting Human Power into Electricity: Current Status and Future Directions

“…Walking into the New York Sports Club's dynamic cycling classes at Eighth Avenue and West 23rd Street in Manhattan, participants get an aerobic workout and generate electricity for the club through their stationary bikes. The computer-aided drawing of the electric bicycle is shown in Figure 15 [96]. The cycles are connected to a compact generator that converts the movement of the wheels into electricity, which is further fed into the grid to offset some of the club's power consumption.…”