Wearable power Harvester for medical applications

Abstract

Abstract. Intelligent biomedical clothes combine health problem prevention, comfort, convenience, entertainment and communication with fashion and make everyday life easier. Homecare and healthcare applications wireless, mobile networks and wireless sensors improve the existing monitoring capabilities especially for the elderly, children, chronically ill and also for athletes. Sensor nodes are generally battery-powered devices. Batteries add size, weight and inconvenience to portable electronic devices and require periodical replacement. Nowadays the human power is an alternative and attractive energy source. Energy, which is generated during routine and seemingly insignificant human motions, shows promise as an alternative to power embedded wireless, mobile networks and wireless sensors. This paper describes the prototype of a smart garment and offers several alternative integration places of generator's parts, which are based on the principle of operation of the electromagnetic generator. Seven variants of location are proposed, which are tested and analysed. During the research, analysis of the most optimal placement of generator's part in garment has been performed.

Design of a body energy harvesting system for the upper extremity

“…It was first simulated, then designed and evaluated. The generator was tested during different activities and the electrical power output is comparable to that of other energy harvesting systems for the upper extremities [6][7][8][9] and sufficient to provide e.g. a sensor based monitoring system [15].…”

“…However, most systems are designed to convert energy from motions of the lower extremities. Only a few systems have yet been presented to explicitly convert energy from movements of the upper extremity [6][7][8][9]. The only commercialized technology can be found in automatic wrist watches [10].…”

Analysis of the Possibility of Using Energy Harvesters to Power Wearable Electronics in Clothing

“…Energy, which is generated during routine and seemingly insignificant movements of the body, seems to be promising as an alternative power supply to wireless, mobile networks, and wireless sensors [13]. In the case of alternative sources of electricity, that allow energy from the movement of the human body to be generated, we can distinguish the solutions based on the following phenomena: piezoelectric, electromagnetic, and triboelectric.…”

“…An example of a solution that uses an electromagnetic field for generation of electricity while walking may be the electromagnetic generator described by Terlecka et al [13].…”

“…Over two and a half times less power, but still high, i.e., 0.18 mW, was obtained in the case of jeans at the knee level and at the speed of motion 4 km/h. Moreover, the tests carried out by Terlecka et al [13] on users wearing insulating clothing with an electromagnetic generator showed that the double increase in the movement speed, i.e., from 3 km/h to 6 km/h, caused the generated power to increase over two and a half times, i.e., from 0.181 mW to 0.502 mW.…”