ABSTRACT

Sustaining the power resource for autonomous wireless and portable electronic
devices is an important issue. Ambient power sources, such as a replacement for
batteries, can minimize the maintenance and the cost of operation by harvesting
different forms of energy from the potential energy sources. Researchers continue to
build high –energy density batteries is not only finite but amount of energy available
in the batteries is not only finite but also low, limiting the lifetime of the system.
Extended lifetime of electronic devices is very important and also has more
advantages in systems with limited accessibility. This research studies one form of
ambient energy sources: passive human power generated from a shoe/sneaker insole
when a person is walking or running and its conversion and storage into usable
electrical energy. Based on source characteristics, electrical energy harvesting,
conversion, and storage circuits were designed, built, and tested for low- power
electronic applications.
 CONTENTS

o INTRODUCTION

o HISTORY OF ENERGY HARVESTING

o REWOD ENERGY GENERATION

o CIRCUIT DIAGRAM

o ENERGY EFFICIENCY AND OPTIMIZATION

o COMPARISION BETWEEN THE ABOVE MENTIONED TECHNOLOGIES

o FUTURE SCOPE OF ELECROWETTING TECHNOLOGY

o REFERENCES
 INTRODUCTION

Energy harvesting is the conversion of ambient energy into usable electrical energy.
When compared to energy stored in common storage elements, such as batteries and
capacitors, the environment represents a relatively infinite source of available energy.
Researchers have been working on many projects to generate electricity from human
power, such as exploiting, cranking, shaking, squeezing, spinning, pushing, pumping,
and pulling. Several types of flashlights were powered with wind-up generators in the
early 20th century. Later versions of these devices, such as wind-up cell phone
chargers and radios, become available in the market. The commercially available
Freeplay’s wind-up radios require 60 turns in one minute of cranking, which allows
for the storage of 500 joules of energy in a spring.
The spring system drives a magnetic generators and efficiently produces enough
power for about an hour of radio play. Recently researchers have performed several
studies in alternative energy sources that could provide small amounts of electricity to
low-power electronic devices. These studies focused on investing and obtaining power
from different energy sources such as vibration, light, sound, airflow, heat, waste
mechanical energy, and temperature variations.
The problem of how to get energy from a person’s foot to other places on the body has
not been suitably solved. Instead of radio frequency identification (RFID) tag or other
wireless devices worm on the shoe, the piezoelectric shoe instead offers a good
solution. However, the applications spaces for such devices is extremely limited, and,
as mentioned earlier, not very applicable to some of the low-powered devices such as
wireless sensor networks. Active human power, which requires the user to perform a
specific power-generating motion, is common and may be referred to separately as
active human-powered systems.
 HISTORY OF ENERGY HARVESTING

A. Mechanical Type System Dynamoelectric Shoes:

A Dynamoelectric shoe includes a shoe sole having a heel portion formed with
a compartment unit [1] [3], a pressure-operated electric generator unit provided
inside the compartments unit, and a rechargeable battery unit. The electric
generators unit includes a hollow base, a pivot plate mounted pivotally in the
hollow base, a volute spring biasing the pivot plate so as to position normally
the latter in an upwardly inclining position, a driving gear secured to the pivot
plate, a unidirectional gear set meshing with the driving gear, a speed increasing
gear set driven by the unidirectional gear set, a press plate having a rear end
mounted pivotally on an open top of the hollow base and a front end provided
with a push plate which extends into the open top of the hollow base and which
abuts against the pivot plate, and an alternator unit which has a rotor drive shaft
that is driven by the speed increasing gear set. The alternator unit produces a
voltage signal when the rotor drive shaft rotors due to repeated application of
pressure on the press plate during use.

The rechargeable battery unit is connected electrically to the alternator unit and
includes an electrical socket mounted on the shoe sole. The rechargeable battery
unit is charged by the voltage signal from the alternator unit. The
Dynamoelectric module which was used to harvest is

Fig.1 Electrodynamometer Energy harvesting prototype

The object of the present invention is to provide a dynamoelectric
 A pressure-operated electric generator unit provided inside the
compartment unit, the electric generator unit including a hollow base with
a longitudinal partition plate provided therein.
 A pivot plate disposed in the hallow base on one side of the partition
plate, the pivot plate having one end fixed to a shaft which extends
through the partition plate and which mounts pivotally the pivot plate to
the hollow base.
 A volute spring having one end connected to the shaft and biasing the
shaft and so as to position normally the pivot plate in an upwardly
inclining position
 A driving gear secured on a distal end of the shaft
 A unidirectional gear set including gear set driven rotatable by the larger
gear wheel of the unidirectional gear set, a press plate having a rear end
that is mounted pivotally on an open top of the hollow base\
 Front end that is provided with a downwardly projecting push plates
which has a distal end that extends into the open top of the hollow base
and that abuts against the pivot plate
 An alternator unit which is disposed in the hollow base and which has a
rotor drive shaft that is provided with a gear member which with the
speed increasing gear set with a compartment unit
 The alternator unit producing a voltage signal when the gear member
rotates due to repeated application of pressure on the press plate during
use
 A rechargeable battery unit connected electrically to the alternator unit
and provided in the compartment unit of the hollow base, the
rechargeable battery unit including an electrical socket mounted on the
shoe sole and being charged by the voltage signal from the alternator unit
[4].
The hollow base has a side panel opposite to the partition plate formed with
an oval-shaped axel hole. The unidirectional gear set further has a gear axle
with a first end mounted pivotally on the partition plate and a second end
extending into the oval-shaped axle hole. The speed increasing gear set
includes a smaller gear wheel which is driven by the larger gear wheel of the
unidirectional gear set & a larger gear wheel which meshes with the gear
member of the alternator unit.
 Fig. showing the main part of EDH prototype

B. Piezo electric based we place our generator is that of a sport

sneaker.
The context in which we place our generator is that of a sport sneaker. This type of
shoe differs from ordinary shoes in one important feature –its energy dissipating
sole [7].
While walking in ordinary “hard” shoes, the foot is rapidly decelerated from its
relatively high downward speed to zero velocity relative to the ground –an action that
requires the application of relatively large and sudden forces to the foot.
 Fig. showing the incorporation of PZT crystal

Baring shock absorption in the feet, this can be simply modelled as a sudden step in
velocity; the force applied to the foot to achieve this deceleration is an impulse. This
impulse causes the foot to decelerate suddenly while the rest of the body is still
moving. The force that stops the body is still moving. The force that stops the rest of
the body’s mass is transmitted through the legs and compresses the knees and other
joints. The function of the insole and midsole in the sport sneaker is to work as a low-
pass filter for this step in velocity, reducing the amount of force applied to the joints.
This reduces any stress that the joints experience and also reduces the incidence of
sports injuries.
The results is that the force and displacement values over time for the bottom and top
of the midsole are not the same as in any passive filter, there is an energy lost is in the
higher harmonics of the step and is dissipated through internal losses in the sole [8].
When the sole springs back after the step it does not exert as much force as before,
returning less energy than was put into it while supplying less restoring force
(somewhat like walking on sand). This system strives to make this burden beneath
notice, ideally loading the user’s stride exactly as much as common sport shoes today.
Fig. showing the implementation of PZT crystal Energy harvesting technique
C. Reverse Electro-wetting type power harvesting shoes:

In a classical electro wetting experiment liquid spreading on the dielectric surface

is facilitated by electrically induced increase in the dielectric surface wettability.
The wettability change arises from the extra electrostatic energy that is associated
with the electrically charged liquid – solid interface, which is formed when the
voltage from an external source is applied between the conductive droplet and the
dielectric-film-coated electrode. It can be shown that this extra electrostatic energy
and the liquid – solid interfacial energy σ sl can be combined to produce
Lippmann’s effective solid – liquid interfacial energy.

σ sl eff = σ s l − C V 2 / 2, where V is the voltage applied between the conductive

droplet and the dielectric-film-coated electrode and C is the capacitance per unit
area of the liquid – solid interface. On inserting Lippmann’s effective interfacial
tension into classical Young’s equation for the droplet contact angle θ , one obtains
the electro wetting equation :

cos θ = cosθ 0 + C V2 / 2σ l v , where

σ lv is the liquid-vapour interfacial energy and θ 0 is the initial droplet contact angle
where no voltage is applied. The electro wetting equation predicts that the droplet
contact angle θ should decrease with the increase in the applied voltage. As a result
the droplet tends to spread and position itself in such a way as to maximize its
overlap with the dielectric-film-coated electrode. Thus, in a classical electro
wetting experiment, the electrical energy is converted into mechanical energy of
liquid motion through electrically induced change in the dielectric surface
wettability. Here we employ a new approach that allows one to run this process in
reverse, converting mechanical energy of liquid motion into electrical current, thus
achieving reverse electro wetting (REWOD). Because REWOD is a novel
phenomenon, which had not been previously described in the literature, a detailed
description of the physics of the REWOD process is lacking.
 Fig. showing REWOD Process

In its essence, the REWOD process is conceptually straight forward. The droplet
and the electrode are connected to the external electrical circuit that provides a
constant bias voltage between the droplet and the electrode. External mechanical
actuation is used to move the droplet in such a way as to force a decrease of its
overlap with the dielectric-fi lm-coated electrode. This results in the decrease of
the total charge that can be maintained at the droplet liquid – solid interface. The
excessive electrical charge then flows back through the electrical circuit that
connects the droplet and the electrode, generating electrical current that can be
used to power the external load. In the REWOD process, fluidic actuation can be
accomplished in a number of different geometries, such as out-of-plane vibration,
in-plane shear and in-channel droplet motion. The electrical energy produced per
unit area of the composite liquid / thin-fi lm-dielectric / solid interface during the
REWOD process is directly proportional to the interfacial electrical capacitance
and to the square of the voltage applied across the interface. Surface charge
trapping is another phenomenon that can substantially reduce energy production
during the REWOD process. In dielectric films with thicknesses of only a few tens
of nanometres, even a few volts can result in very strong electric fields on the scale
of 10 6 V cm − 1 . As a result, electrical carrier injection and subsequent charge
trapping in the dielectric film often take place. This essentially causes
immobilization of some portion of the electrical charge in the dielectric, impeding
charge collection during the de-wetting process and, thus, reducing energy
generation efficiency.

III.REWOD ENERGY GENERATION

The dependence of the REWOD energy generation on the wetting, de-wetting
frequency and the number of droplets was investigated using sliding-plates
actuation. In the figure shown, the dependence of the average energy density per
one wetting, de-wetting cycle is plotted as a function of wetting, de-wetting
frequency for five different voltages. The energy produced per cycle increased
with the frequency for all five voltages. As discussed below, these experimental
data can be collapsed onto a single master curve by an appropriate scaling as
shown in Figure.
Devices with even larger number of droplets can be readily fabricated by
exploiting a natural synergy between the REWOD process and droplet-based
microfluidics. Indeed, parallel actuation of a large number of micro-droplets
required for scaling-up of the generated power is routinely performed in channel
based droplet macro fluidic devices, where thousands of droplets can be
synchronously moved in micro channels with a great degree of control over their
position and velocity.

Combination of REWOD and droplet micro fluids offers important advantages

such as easy scaling, very flexible force displacement relationship, and extremely
simple device design with no moving solid parts. Microfluidic power generators
based on the REWOD process can take advantage of many previously inaccessible
environmental mechanical energy sources. Two specific examples will be
illustrated:

Energy harvesting from human locomotion and high power harvesting of

mechanical vibration energy.

The following simple estimate illustrates the power that can be produced by a
footwear-embedded microfluidic harvester using the REWOD process. [7] Let us
consider 2m long train of 1,000 conductive droplets, each 1 mm long separated by
1 mm spacers and positioned inside 1-mm diameter circular cross-section channel
with the total length of 4 m. The total area covered by such channel is about 40 cm
2
or less than ¼ of the area of a typical human footprint. The total volume of the
liquid contained in the channel would be about 4 ml, which makes it readily
compatible with footwear. Assuming that the heel area is about 20 cm square, we
estimate that the total midsole compression required to achieve 4 ml volume
displacement is around 2 mm. Such a displacement is well below the level that
might affect the person’s gait.

The average power per foot can exceed 2W for bias voltages in excess of 35 V and
10 W for bias voltages in excess of 75 V. The bias voltage can be substantially
reduced by increasing the capacitance of the dielectric film stack. However, it is
important to mention, that even at its current level the bias voltage does not present
a substantial practical issue. A wide range of commercially available DC–DC
boost converter components can be used to convert the 3.7 V output of standard Li-
ion batteries to the required bias voltage. Thus, this example clearly supports the
use of footwear designed for high-power-energy harvesting based on reverse
electro-wetting.

IV. CIRCUIT DIAGRAM

The circuit used to investigate energy generation includes a source of a bias

voltage V, a resistive load R

, and a variable capacitor C (the REWOD unit, which represents a harvester set-up,
that is, a set of droplets in contact with the electrode grid)[7].
Fig a. showing the brief idea of reverse electro-wetting,
 b. showing the process of reverse electro-wetting,
c. showing the overall implementation of the idea.
V. ENERGY EFFICIENCY AND OPTIMIZATION

A wide range of dielectric liquids (which were used in the micro channel actuation
set-up) from alkanes (decane, dodecane and hexadecane) to silicone oils could be
used. A number of conducting liquids such as aqueous salt solutions, molten ionic
salts, and liquid metals have shown the REWOD phenomenon [9]. Liquid metals
proved to be the best exhibiting high electrical conductivity, higher surface
tension, and low vapour pressure. Using electrons for charge carriers shows
significant improvement in energy production. Higher surface tension is desirable,
because the energy per unit area increases as surface tension increases. There are
only two choices for liquid metals that remain liquid at room temperature: Hg and
Ga / In / Sn alloy or Galinstan[5].

The next important consideration was to develop a dielectric film optimized for
energy production. The electrode capacitance can be increased by using a higher-k
material and by decreasing the dielectric layer thickness.
Simple calculations indicate that if high capacitance on the order of 102Nf/cm− 2 is
to be achieved at lower working voltages ( < 100 V), dielectric film thicknesses are
limited to several 100 nm, but, as previously noted, field strengths are quite high
causing the film to be susceptible to breakdown [10]. We ultimately determined
that Ta2O5, possessing a relatively high k of 25, demonstrated the best resistance to
dielectric breakdown. The Ta2O5 films were produced by anodic oxidation at room
temperature of sputtered deposited Ta films on quartz substrates. Precise Ta 2O5
thickness could be controlled by adjusting the anodizing voltage.

Although not completely understood theoretically, we found that charge trapping

at the interface between the liquid and the dielectric surface had a dominant role in
limiting energy production. The amount of charge trapped at the interface
drastically reduces the amount of energy available for use. We investigated
numerous dielectrics not only for their breakdown characteristics but also for their
tendency to trap charge. As a result, we discovered that all oxide thin films, which
we investigated, were poor at energy production. Inorganic fluorides were better,
but fluoro-polymers or Teflon like films were by far the best suited for usage.

VI.COMPARISION BETWEEN THE ABOVE MENTIONED TECHNOLOGIES:

Though the mechanical type power harvesting shoes has a straight forward
implementation approach, it has a few limitations as listed below [2]:

 size of the shoe sole increases, gait of the person may alter slightly

 couldn’t be implemented in all the styles of shoes and sandals available

 difficulty in replacement of worn out parts.
 they have a limited life cycle(about 10,000 steps).

The piezoelectric type implementation is definitely a improvisation over the

mechanical ones in terms of durability, complexity and level of comfort to the
user, but they too have a few disadvantages [2][8]:

 mechanical stress upon the crystal eventually wears it off.

 study says the efficiency of the crystal is lost over a period of time i.e., to
generate the same amount of energy more of pressure has to be applied on the
crystal.

The electro-wetting type of implementation of the same prototype definitely has

an edge over the other types in the following ways:

  its very space efficient.

  gait of the person isn’t affected.

  practically has an infinite lifetime.

  efficiency doesn’t decrease upon usage.

 Versatality, it could be used in many different forms which is explained in
the next section.
 VI. FUTURE SCOPE OF
ELECROWETTING TECHNOLOGY

1. Shoes which generate considerable amount of energy on walking, on

introduction to the market could potentially revolutionise the flourishing
thoughts about low power energy harvesting.

2. It could be used in different fields where independent power source is

required at the expense of muscular energy and in emergency
situations.

Eg :mining, cave explorations, military applications etc.

3. The same technology could be used in different forms to harvest energy

from different sources producing linear or sheer stress like in
  Buildings.

  hanging bridges.

  tyres of vehicles.
 wind shields of fast moving cars.
Fig. showing the schematics of the device practically used; topview of the droplets
overlapping one of the electrodes.

Fig. showing the Final prototype of the idea

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