Abstract
Biomechanical energy harvesting is a feasible solution for powering wearable sensors by directly driving electronics or acting as wearable self-powered sensors. A wearable insole that not only can harvest energy from foot pressure during walking but also can serve as a self-powered human motion recognition sensor is reported. The insole is designed as a sandwich structure consisting of two wavy silica gel film separated by a flexible piezoelectric foil stave, which has higher performance compared with conventional piezoelectric harvesters with cantilever structure. The energy harvesting insole is capable of driving some common electronics by scavenging energy from human walking. Moreover, it can be used to recognize human motion as the waveforms it generates change when people are in different locomotion modes. It is demonstrated that different types of human motion such as walking and running are clearly classified by the insole without any external power source. This work not only expands the applications of piezoelectric energy harvesters for wearable power supplies and self-powered sensors, but also provides possible approaches for wearable self-powered human motion monitoring that is of great importance in many fields such as rehabilitation and sports science.
Highlights
With the rapid development of wearable electronics, there is an increasing demand for wearable and portable power sources
A biomechanical energy harvester itself can serve as a wearable self-powered sensor which can accurately detect both static and dynamic processes of environmental triggers without external power sources
A large number of biomechanical energy harvesters based on various mechanisms have been proposed, such as electromagnetic generators [1,2,3,4], electrostatic generators [5,6], thermoelectric generators [7,8,9,10], triboelectric nanogenerators [11,12,13,14] and piezoelectric generators [15,16,17,18,19,20]
Summary
With the rapid development of wearable electronics, there is an increasing demand for wearable and portable power sources. A large number of biomechanical energy harvesters based on various mechanisms have been proposed, such as electromagnetic generators [1,2,3,4], electrostatic generators [5,6], thermoelectric generators [7,8,9,10], triboelectric nanogenerators [11,12,13,14] and piezoelectric generators [15,16,17,18,19,20].
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