Human Energy Harvesting Using Piezoelectric Transduction

New revolutionary technologies are emerging fast to address this issue of increased electrical power generation and storage needs. An example is teams of MIT scientists that have created a synthetic, self-assembling chloroplast that can be break and reassemble repeatedly, a self-restoring solar cell. (Dillow, 2010). Another example is a company called Bloom Energy, which is producing tiny fuel cell boxes called “Bloom Boxes.” Two of these can power an average U.S. home. Each device is about the size of a standard brick. Although they need to be surrounded by a larger unit that takes in an energy source, they are still about the size of a refrigerator. This alternative is already being tested by companies such as Google and eBay (Siegler, 2010).

A thermoelectric device is able to generate electricity if the ambient air temperature is lower than the body temperature. A square centimeter and at least a patch of thermoelectric generator material can potentially produce 30 microwatts of power. Now if you have more than one thermoelectric generator, you can multiply the amount of power that is being stored in a battery. Thanks to our years of research with thermoelectric generators, we could make some progress in these devices like for example this science fair project.

In the past few years prototype has been going under many modifications. Last year it was completed but few flaws were there. Spring Mechanism was used by previous degree but it was not reliable as due to excess use spring lost its elasticity and could not be used for triggering. Spring mechanism was also not aesthetically good. A lot of aesthetics was to be done. To cater for this problem we used limit switch for efficient triggering and made compact circuitry using 8 pin controllers and added much to aesthetics of limb.

The possibilities offered by this new type of battery would indeed be considerable. From the smartphone to the tablet, via laptop, GPS or car, all energy consuming mobile power products and requiring regular refills could benefit from the advantages of this new combination. Moreover, these batteries could also be used at much larger scale than the charging alone phones or computers and storing electricity produced by renewable sources such as wind turbines or solar and tidal power.

Percival Zhang and Zhiguang Zhu, researchers at Virginia Tech, in Blacksburg, designed an incipient biobattery with a more preponderant output per weight than the typical lithium-ion batteries utilized in most electronics. They described the research online last month in the journal Nature

2-Solar Energy: the use of receptors solar panels pick up solar radiation for turning solar energy to electric power

Due to the rapidly growing role of electronics, electronic components, such as diodes, transistors, and integrated circuits are now omnipresent, impacting today’s society. Therefore, it is important to analyze projects and/or experiments related to diodes, transistors, and other components, to determine whether these projects and/or experiments bring us closer to a sustainable society, which is a society that satisfies current needs without compromising posterity’s future needs and fosters consonance between humans and their surroundings[1].

During lab, we have designed circuits proving each of these electrical principles. Now, let's apply this knowledge to a real world application.

However, many embedded systems rely on temporary power so are designed to conserve energy, such as cell phone

In the present generation, almost every devices run through batteries. Batteries are a collection of cells where their chemical reactions create a flow of electricity in a circuit. Every battery consists of three essential components, which are an anode, a cathode, and an electrolyte that chemically reacts with the other two components. In the 17th and 18th century, electricity was just a curiosity, but as time passed by, it became one of the most important and required tools. For instance, any kind of remotes in order to have an access to any kind of devices requires batteries. Alessandro Volta was the one to make the crucial invention that caused the transformation in our lives. Our lives wouldn’t be like now, with no laptops, phones, and

The mote’s size makes energy management a key component. The circuit will contain circuits, a temperature sensor, and A/D converter, microprocessor, SRAM, communications circuits, and power control circuits. Sensors work together with the IC, which will operate from a power source integrated with the platform.

Even though several powered prosthetic devices have been designed and proposed to improve amputee walking experience by exploiting active elements, these designs yet suffer from heavy and bulky actuators which is necessary to produce the power of propulsion. In this paper,

More efficient and durable batteries are needed to satisfy the requirements of new technology developments.

Attached is the report for the study “Kinetic Energy Harvesting in the Jackson Blue Line – Red Line Subway Transfer Tunnel”. I have completed the tasks outlined in my January 22, 2015 proposal: finding the amount of electricity it takes to power the tunnel, finding the cost of the required amount of energy produced through other sustainable means, and traditional unsustainable means, and how many people would it take to generate the needed power through the kinetic energy harvesting.

Abstract—In this study a new noise source is proposed as a one of renewable energy sources in energy harvesting. Disk Jokey (DJ) is a common device in celebrations and other events. Converting the produced noise from DJ to electric energy by using a suitable piezoelectric transducer is the main aim of this study. Piezoelectric sensors used to convert the sound waves to electric charges. Piezoelectric sensor of the model 7BB-41-2 was used. The piezoelectric sensors were connected in series, parallel, and series with parallel combination connections. The disk jockey was used as an acoustic noise source. The sound intensity levels of the output sound were 81, 84, 87 dB. The output of the three connection modes were measured at 0, 1,2,3,4, and 5cm distance. The results showed that the parallel connection gave the highest power at the various distances. The maximum generated power was 4.96mwatts without using an external power supply for the signal condition device. The power decreases by increasing the distance from the source of the noise.