An electromagnetic energy harvester with a half-wave rectification mechanism for military personnel

Abstract

Military personnel need electronic devices and usually carry heavier batteries to meet the power consumption of electronics, which will hinder military operations. This paper proposes an electromagnetic energy harvester for converting human motion energy into electricity for military personnel. The proposed system consists of a human motion energy harvesting module and an energy storage module. The electromagnetic energy harvester using a Halbach magnet array with a half-wave rectification mechanism is proposed to harvest human motion energy for generating electricity. The half-wave rectification mechanism keeps the magnets and coils on a one-way rotation, allowing them to continue their relative motion for some time after the excitation has disappeared, thus improving the output power. Experimental results showed that the power density of the proposed electromagnetic energy harvester with a half-wave rectification mechanism could reach 190% of the power density of the electromagnetic energy harvester without a rectification mechanism at an excitation frequency of 3 Hz and an amplitude of 90°. From the experimental results, the maximum output power of the electromagnetic energy harvester with a half-wave rectification mechanism reached 39.02 mW. Experiments and application prospects confirmed the feasibility of the proposed electromagnetic energy harvester for military personnel.