Design, fabrication and characterization of an inductive human motion energy harvester for application in shoes

The concept of energy harvesting has been in the focus of research for more than two decades now and with the continuous device miniaturization and reduction in power consumption of the electronics it has become a viable power source for mobile systems. The increasing desire for mobility and longevity in terms of battery life has eventually led to wearable systems, i.e. electronic circuits with their power supply which are being integrated into textiles and everyday life. This paper reports the development of a cylindrical inductive energy harvesting device which exploits the accelerations available in the plane of the foot during walking. The modeling and characterization of the system is based upon real-world acceleration data recorded during treadmill runs. Although a wider range of test subjects would be required to increase the statistical relevance of the measured data, it is concluded that the energy provided by this system is sufficient to power low energy circuits at comparatively slow walking velocities. Additionally, the obtained knowledge can be used to develop a smaller, parallelized system.