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Nia 2017 IOP Conf. Ser. Mater. Sci. Eng. 291 012026
Nia 2017 IOP Conf. Ser. Mater. Sci. Eng. 291 012026
Elham Maghsoudi Nia1, a, Noor Amila Wan Abdullah Zawawi2,b*, Balbir Singh
Mahinder Singh3, c
1,2
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Universiti Teknologi
PETRONAS, 32610, Seri Iskandar, Malaysia
3
Department of Fundamental and Applied Sciences, Universiti Teknologi
PETRONAS, 32610, Seri Iskandar, Malaysia
*
amilawa@utp.edu.my
Abstract. Harvesting kinetic energies is a sustainable method for generating electricity without
depleting natural resources. The main mechanisms for kinetic energy harvesting are
piezoelectric, electromagnetic, electrostatic or by using magnetostrictive materials. This study
focuses on harvesting of walking energy and aims to compare different technologies used for
converting of walking energy to electricity, and identify the most effective technology. Several
types of harvester located on body of user to harvest kinetic energy of body during walking,
while some pavement slabs are produced for harvesting energy. The paper concludes that the
pavement equipped with the harvesters would be more reliable than the body located
technologies since it is independent of the physiological parameters. Moreover, the piezoelectric
transduction is more desirable due to its advantages such as simplicity and flexibility, while
produce less current output than the electromagnetic transduction.
1. Introduction
Energy harvesting or scavenging is the process of capturing the wasted energy from naturally occurring
energy sources, accumulating and storing it for later use [1]. In another definition by Kazmierski and
Beeby [2] energy harvesting is the conversion of ambient energy, exist in the environment into electrical
energy. Harvesting energy is one of the most promising techniques in response to the global energy
problem without depleting natural resources. Energy harvesting typically refers to micro- to milli-watts
small power generation systems that is developed as a method for replacing or augmenting batteries. It
exploits kinetic, thermal, solar sources or electromagnetic radiation sources. The kinetic energy
harvesting that is the purpose of this study, converts movement, mainly in form of vibrations, into
electrical energy. An energy harvester has typically three main components; the micro-generator for
converting ambient energy into electrical energy, the voltage booster to pumps up and regulate the
generator voltage and the storage element [3]. Since vibration power generators are mainly resonant
systems, the maximum power is generated when the resonant frequency of the generators matches
ambient vibration frequency [4]. Regarding the scope of the study that is harvesting kinetic energy of
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Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd 1
International Conference on Architecture and Civil Engineering (ICACE 2017) IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 291 (2017) 012026 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/291/1/012026
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walking, the frequency of the human movements is less than 10 Hz [5]. Harvesting kinetic energy of the
human body including walking energy is one of the methods of providing electricity for low-powered
devices through implementing energy harvesting technologies, which in the individual has the potential
to become a power generator [6].
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International Conference on Architecture and Civil Engineering (ICACE 2017) IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 291 (2017) 012026 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/291/1/012026
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Warrington [15] suggested considering careful design for a body located harvester used the available
energy of the body to power an electronic device. To increase the power output at low vibration
frequency, Zhang, Wang [29] developed the energy harvesters to convert low-frequency vibrations to a
higher frequency by employing the frequency up-conversion technique [30, 31]. Their simulations of
power generation through magnet and coil arrays show that the high energy-conversion efficiency can
be maintained at low vibration frequency and large vibration amplitude [29]. As a consequence,
according to Riemer and Shapiro [19] the most power output refers to the technology of EAPs for heel-
strike devices. Table-1 shows the output power of different technologies located on the body.
Table 1.Comparison of different technologies located on the body for converting energy of body
motion during walking to electrical energy.
Ref. Type of Technology Output Power
Inertial energy harvesters:
[23] Body’s own inertia (compression of the shoe sole) 0.8 W
[32, 33] Inertial energy harvesters for a small wireless device, from 100–200 μW
walking
[7] Inertial energy harvesters fits for Internet of Things applications:
for trouser pocket placement 202 μW
for waist belt placement 180 μW
for shirt pocket sensing unit placement 155 μW
[24] Inertial forces inside backpacks Few milliwatts to a
[21] Inertial forces inside backpacks Shoes few watts
Piezoelectric elements:
[34] Piezoelectric generator harvesting the energy of footfall during 150-675mW
walking
[28] The piezoelectric elements for low frequencies conditions and Nearly 100 mW
low-consumption devices
[35, 36] A cymbal-shaped piezoelectric 53mW
[37] Two back-to-back unimorphs 8.4mW
[22] Harness the heel strike using a unimorph strip 1.8mW
[37] The PVDF stack 1.3mW
[22] A stack of Polyvinylidinefluoride (PVDF) sheets shaped 1.1mW
[38] A piezoelectric vibration generator 375 µW
The technology of EAPs:
[19] The technology of EAPs for heel-strike devices 0.8 W
From the heel strike (for a walking person weighing 80 kg at 2W
around 4 km/h)
The knees and the ankles (for a person weighing 80 kg) 34 W and 20 W,
respectively
Electromagnetic energy harvester:
[24] Spring-loaded energy harvesting backpack with a magnetic 7 W power
generator
[14, 24] The biomechanical energy harvester consists of an aluminum (4.8±0.8) W
chassis and a generator located on a customized knee brace
[29] A hand-held electromagnetic energy harvester from body motion 32 mW
located in a backpack of a user at 3.58m/s walking speed
[15] Electromagnetic induction generator located alongside of the 3.9 μW
ankle for implantable devices
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International Conference on Architecture and Civil Engineering (ICACE 2017) IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 291 (2017) 012026 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/291/1/012026
1234567890
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International Conference on Architecture and Civil Engineering (ICACE 2017) IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 291 (2017) 012026 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/291/1/012026
1234567890
harvests 6 to 8 joules of energy per footstep. Each step produces only enough electricity to keep an LED-
powered street lamp lit for 30 seconds. The system uses 5 % of the power to light the central lamp and
the other 95 % of the power either can be stored in internal or external batteries for up to three days or
used directly for external applications. Hence, when no central light is required, the output is 100 % of
the power [6]. In their first commercial application, they expected that by scattering 20 tiles along the
central crossing between London's Olympic stadium and Westfield Stratford City mall, and estimating
30 million customers, can power half of outdoor lighting at vast London shopping mall. Kemball-Cook,
the founder and CEO of Pavegen, mentioned another example of using this slab recently in a big outdoor
festival received over 250,000 footsteps that was enough to charge 10,000 mobile phones. He added that
it is also easy to install the Pavegen slab as a retrofit on existing pavements, can match their exact
dimensions and be replaced one slab with another. He also foresees Pavegen systems to power off-grid
appliances such as public lighting, illuminated street maps and advertising, and can be used in dense
human traffics areas [41]. The main issue of green slabs of Pavegen is its price. However, the company
hopes to see the price drop to below $100 per tile in the near future.
Additionally, Vanz and Karakiewicz [6] proposed a power generating device for safety lighting along
the specific stairways in Melbourne, and focused on ergonomics, comfort and safety of the pedestrian
as well. They considered four conditions including force of footstep, technology, service provided, and
context in their study. They measured the selected ten piezoelectric sensors, generating 300 μJ per
actuation (EG300), per tread and two steps, and placed 20 LEDs along two steps. Since per sensor can
light the 20 LEDs, hence, they would be powered for 1.5 hour per day. By increasing the number of
sensors per tread up to 15 and distribution of 20 LEDs along three stair treads, which is sufficient for
safety purpose the duration of the lighting increases to over 3.5 hours. It can be estimated that by
considering 10 sensors (EG300) along one stair tread, the power generating system can keep 200 LED
light for 10 hours at night time for a higher pedestrian’s traffic pathway, such as the subway in Tokyo,
with around 4 million pedestrians daily. By comparing the developed device based on the piezoelectric
sensors with Pavegen technology, it could be concluded that the proposed prototype is more efficient,
due to the physical occupied space by the systems, and the system efficiency in capturing the footstep
energy using the flexibility of the prototype design [6].
As a consequence, both piezoelectric harvesters located on the body and in the floor, can generate
power from a microwatt to few watts. However, harvesters located on the body are dependent on the
location of the generator and average of the acceleration, frequency of motion, and the power vary,
significantly. Therefore, to gain a consistent output, implementing the harvester within the pavement
slab is a better choice.
5. Conclusion
The study has reviewed the different methods of harvesting footsteps, the power output and in some
cases the applications. By comparing the harvesting energy technologies located on the body and
pavement, it is revealed that for body located harvester the power output depends on the physiological
parameters. Therefore, it is better to implement the harvester within the pavement slab to gain a
consistent output. Furthermore, in comparison between the different types of transductions used in the
equipped pavements, although, the output current of the electromagnetic mechanism is high, the
piezoelectric technology with the simple structure, flexibility of the design and geometry, small size of
the sensors, the ability of easily meshing into hybrid materials has made the piezoelectric transduction
desirable. Moreover, four proposed interrelated conditions, play a main role in achieving the desirable
results. It is obvious that the number of pedestrian is the main factor when selecting the type of
technology and can be effective on the generated power output. In the other word, the type of
transduction has to be selected according to the number of footsteps and the needed services. The study
recommends more exploration on the piezoelectric properties to optimize the power output in order to
use the technology for the pavement in different application.
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International Conference on Architecture and Civil Engineering (ICACE 2017) IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 291 (2017) 012026 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/291/1/012026
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International Conference on Architecture and Civil Engineering (ICACE 2017) IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 291 (2017) 012026 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/291/1/012026
1234567890