Abstract
This study is mainly to provide an overview of human walking induced energy harvest. Focusing on the proportion of all energy sources provided by daily activity, the available human walking induced energy is divided with respect to the generation principle. The extensive research on harvesting energy results from body vibration, inertial element, and foot press to convert into electricity is overviewed. Over the past decades, various smart materials have been employed to achieve energy conversion. Generators based on electromagnetic induction or the triboelectric effect were developed and integrated. Small captured power and low overall efficiency are criticized. The concept of human walking energy harvest is extended into the wearable walking robotics using other mediums, such as fluid, to transmit power instead of electricity. By comparison, it is indicated that less energy conversion links are involved in energy regeneration of such applications and expected to guarantee less loss and higher efficiency. Meanwhile, in order to overcome the shortage of relatively low power output, comments are made that the harvester should be capable of adaptation under the condition that the mechanical energy of lower limb and feet is subject to change in different gait phases so as to maximize the collected energy.
Highlights
Energy is a basic need in human life, and people are consuming more and more energy for doing their activities with the emergence of home appliances and wearable electronics [1,2]
This paper primarily provides an overview of various human walking induced energy harvesting techniques, from the aspects of conversion, storage, and utilization
Based on the analysis of the previously conducted and ongoing research activities, recommendations were made for harvesting the energy from human walking and utilizing wearable robotics
Summary
Energy is a basic need in human life, and people are consuming more and more energy for doing their activities with the emergence of home appliances and wearable electronics [1,2]. The major energy provided by the human body results from limb movement, heat, and biochemical potentials. Among these three types of energy sources, body motion produces the most. Human walking induced energy is much easier to harvest and convert into electricity in relatively greater quantity because it contains the kinetic and potential energy of the body. A triboelectric generator based on the triboelectric effect has attracted researchers’ interests to fabricate the flexible structures from nanotechnology and harvest energy from a walking human body [22,23].
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