On Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting from Human Motion

Abstract

With the rapid development of low-power communication technology and microelectronics technology, wearable and portable embedded health monitoring devices, micro-sensors, and human body network positioning devices have begun to appear. For seeking reliable energy sources to replace battery on these devices, it is of great significance for developing low power products to explore the research of piezoelectric effect in conversion of human motion into electricity. Based on the different human motions, the existing technology of piezoelectric energy harvester (PEH) is firstly classified, including PEHs through heel-strike, knee-joint, arm motion, center of mass. The technology is then summarized and the direction of future development and efforts is further pointed out.

A review of piezoelectric energy harvesting tiles: Available designs and future perspective

“…Some of these materials belong to the family of BaTiO 3 , K 0.5 Na 0.5 NbO 3 , Bi 0.5 Na 0.5 TiO 3 , Pb(Zr,Ti)O 3 , ZnO, and a few polymers, as documented in the literature in various reviews and books [10][11][12][13]. In the context of piezoelectric energy harvesting, it has been explored for various kinds of mechanical energy harvesting from acoustics [14,15], water flow energy [16], wind energy [17], human motion [18], railway tracks [19], and highways [20]. Typically, energy outputs (from piezoelectric) are alternating current and voltage where current is of the order of microamperes and voltage is in the range of few volts [21].…”