Abstract
In this paper, we study energy harvesting from the mouse click motions of a robot finger and a human index finger using a piezoelectric material. The feasibility of energy harvesting from mouse click motions is experimentally and theoretically assessed. The fingers wear a glove with a pocket for including the piezoelectric material. We model the energy harvesting system through the inverse kinematic framework of parallel joints in a finger and the electromechanical coupling equations of the piezoelectric material. The model is validated through energy harvesting experiments in the robot and human fingers with the systematically varying load resistance. We find that energy harvesting is maximized at the matched load resistance to the impedance of the piezoelectric material, and the harvested energy level is tens of nJ.
Highlights
Recent advancements and developments in the area of wearable devices have stimulated the demand for energy harvesting system [1,2,3]
Energy harvesting to support the power of wearable devices using the human body energy sources can offer several benefits: permanent lifetime and weight reduction through the needlessness of batteries [8]
We focus on the mouse click motions of fingers for energy harvesting
Summary
Recent advancements and developments in the area of wearable devices have stimulated the demand for energy harvesting system [1,2,3] Various energy sources, such as heat [4] and motions [5,6,7], in human body can be converted into useful electric energy by using energy transducers. Lead zirconate titanate (PZT) [11,12,13], Polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) [14,15,16,17], Macro-fiber composite (MFC) [18,19,20,21], Aluminum nitride (AlN) [22], and Zinc oxide (ZnO) [23] have been used as typical energy transducers They convert the kinetic energy of surrounding environment into electric energy. The flexibility can offer important advantage in the development of wearable devices by reducing the inconvenience of wearing
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