Load-suspended power backpack for labor saving and energy harvesting from human walk

Abstract

Long-distance walk with a heavy load such as hiking and field rescue, often leads to accumulative fatigue. And continuous energy support for wearable electronics is often demanded in remote areas. Here, we report a new load-suspended power backpack that can realize labor saving and energy harvesting from human walking. An innovative suspended system is designed to decouple the synchronous movement of backpack and body, which consists of two elastomer-pulley block units and two linear sliding rod units. It also utilizes a new charge pumping technology of triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) for high-efficient energy conversion, achieved by a specially designed main TENG and two buffer capacitors (BFCs). The main TENG has one top electrode but two bottom ones to build two separated plate variable capacitors for charge storage. The new technology is characterized by using one top electrode to synchronously drive shuttling charges in four pathways between main TENG and BFCs, and generating electricity based on shuttling charges. Consequently, it can reduce the remarkable 32.6% vertical vibrations of load and 26.7% wearing force and provide a high voltage of 820 V and a current of 103.2 μA. The average power in one current pathway is calculated to 84.1 mW (336.4 mW for four ones) with an effective power density of 29.96 mW/g, high enough to light 354 small LEDs, 235 large LEDs, the electronic watch and thermos-hygrometer. The backpack can not only be applied to relieve accumulative fatigue, but also has great potential to be an energy source for continuously driving wearable electronics for various applications.