CHINESEJOURNALOFMECHANICALENGINEERING

Vol.24,aNo. 5,a2011
DOI:10.3901/CJME.2011.05.***,availableonlineatwww.cjmenet.comwww.cjmenet.com.cn

DesignandAnalysisofaMechanicalDevicetoHarvestEnergy FromHumanFootstepMotion
1, 2,* 2 XIELonghan ,DURuxu

1SchoolofMechanical&AutomotiveEngineering,SouthChinaUniversityofTechnology,Guangzhou510640,China 2InstituteofPrecisionEngineering,theChineseUniversityofHongKong,HongKong,China
Received December23,2010revised May 10,2011 accepted May 13,2011published electronicallyMay 18,2011

Abstract:Portableelectronicsisusuallypoweredbybattery,whichisnotsustainablenotonlytothelongtimeoutdoorusebutalsoto ourlivingenvironment.Thereisrichkineticenergyinfootstepmotionduringwalking,soitisidealtoharvestthekineticenergyfrom humanfootstepmotionaspowersourceforportable electronicdevices.Inthispaper,anovelmechanismbasedondualoscillatingmode is designed to harvest the kinetic energy from footstep motion. The harvester contains two oscillating submechanisms: one is springmassoscillatortoabsorbthevibrationfromexternalexcitation,i.e.thefootstepmotion,andtheotheriscantileverbeamwithtip massforamplifyingthevibration.Theoreticanalysis shows thatthedualoscillatingmechanismcanbemoreeffectivelyharnessthefoot stepmotion.Theenergyconversionsubmechanismisbasedontheelectromagneticinduction,wherethewirecoilsfixedatthetipend ofthecantileverbeamservesasthesliderandpermanentmagnetsandyokeformthechangingmagneticfield. Simulationshowsthatthe harvester,withtotalmass70 g,canproduceabout 100mWofelectricityatthewalkingspeedof2stepspersecond. Keywords: energyharvesting, dualoscillatingmechanism, humanmotion

1 Introduction*
In recent years, humans have become increasingly dependent on electronic devices, such as mobile phones, PDAs,andetc.Especiallyfor soldiersinremotearea,they need to use electronicdevices for communication or other necessary functions, such as the US Army Land Warrior [1] systemprovidingradio,navigation,computerforsoldiers . Nowadays, most of these mobile electronic devices are poweredbybatteries.Althoughsubstantialprogresseshave been made in reducing the power requirements of the electronic devices and increasing the power densities of batteries, the limited energy storage of battery and its considerable weight hinder the extensive use of electronic devices. For example, the abovementioned Land Warrior system needs 5 kg of battery to reach the design goal, whichisinconvenientforsoldierapplication.Furthermore, discarded battery generates billions of wastes every year, resulting in negative environment impacts.Therefore, it is necessary to find alternative methods to solve the energy problemforportable electronicdevices. The human body is a tremendous resource of chemical energy, some of which is converted into kinetic energy to supporthumanactivities. The storechemical energy of an
* Correspondingauthor.Email:xielonghan@gmail.com This paper is supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the CentralUniversities ofChina (GrantNo.2011ZM0061).

averagepersonof68kgwith15%bodyfatisapproximately equivalentto384MJ [2].Thus,ifevenaverysmallfraction of this stored energy could be extracted,a portable device would have a large and renewable resource to draw on. Some researchers have explored to extract energy from [3, 4] [5] [6] [7] body heat , breathing , typing , arm motion , and [8,9] walking .Walkingisamainenergyconsumptionactivity which also has mechanical power to be exploited. It has beencalculatedthatup to67Wofpowerareavailablefrom heel strike duringnormal walking for a 68 kg person with [2] the walking frequency at 2 steps per second . There are mainly two methods to harvest the heel strike energy duringhumanwalking.Oneistousepiezoelectriceffectto convert the pressure generated when the foot strikes the groundtoelectricity,buttheenergydensity ofpiezoelectric [10] harvester is very low (on the scale of milliwatts) . Anotheristouselectromagneticinductiontoconvertbody [11] [12] motion into electricity. CHEN and LAKIC reported electromechanicalgeneratorstoconvertthefootstepmotion. Howeverthesedesignsarevery complexwithmanyparts, and can only harvest the pressdown motion, which make thesedeviceisfragile,expensiveand lowerefficiency. This paper is focused on how to harvest the kinetic energy from human footstep motion based on dualoscillating mechanism and electromagnetic induction. In order to avoid the fragile contact between the transmissioncomponents,thedesignpresentedinthispaper adopts a dualoscillating mechanism to harvest footstep motion.Becausetheharvesteronlyabsorbstheacceleration

YXIELonghan,etal:DesignandAnalysisofaMechanicalDevicetoHarvestEnergyFromHumanFootstepMotion
excitation. Two identical cantilever beams attached to the oscillatingweight,andtheweightatitstipend,makeupof the second tier of oscillating mechanism to amplify the vibration from the oscillating weight. The wire coils are wound at the tip end of the cantilever beam as the proof massforthesecondtieroftheoscillatingmechanism.With the magnetic field produced by permanent magnets, the vibration from the two tiers of oscillating mechanism makesthewirecoilsgenerateinductionvoltage.
Yokemadofelectricsteel Fixed Permanentmagnetspair

from footstep motion andneednt transmit motion directly fromheelstrike,itisstrongerandmorereliablethanother designswithsimilarfunctions. Andwhatsmore,thedesign is based on the massspring oscillating mechanism, so it can harness not only the heel strike motion, but also the acceleration during foot swing, which can contribute to higherenergyefficiency.Therestofthispaperisorganized as follows. Section 2 illustrates the physical model of the harvester.Section3conductsthesystemanalysis,including electromagnetic andkinematical analysis. Section 4 shows the system performance during normal walking. Section 5 containstheconclusions.

2 PhysicalModeloftheHarvester
Thebottomrearpartofashoe,i.e.theheel,isdesigned tosupporttheheelofthefoot,whichisusuallyhigherthan the shoe sole. Therefore it is ideal to employ theroom of the shoe heel to set up a harvester to harness the footstep motion. Fig. 1 shows the appearance of the harvester, whichisaboxcontainerwheretheharvesterisfixed. The containerismadeofnonmagneticmentaltoendurehuman body weight and the impulsive force from heel strike. There are two helical springs on the harvester: one is attachedto the bottom base of the container, andthe other is attached to the upper cover of the container. And the containercoverisfixedviascrewstothecontainerbody.

Containerbody

Fig.2. Structureforproducingmagneticfield

Helicalsprings Yoke

Cantileverbeam

Insertedtoshoeheel
Oscillatingweight

CoverwithScrewholes

Coils

Permanentmagnets

Fig.3. Structureofthe oscillating mechanism

Abstracted from the physical model, Fig. 4 shows the schematic diagram of the harvester, which can be divided into three functional parts: vibration absorber, vibration Fig.1. Theoverviewofthedualoscillatingharvester amplifier and harvesting mechanism. The vibration absorber,consistingofanoscillatingweightandtwohelical The harvester is symmetric, and there are independent springsattachedtotheoscillatingweightandthecontainer magnetic fields in the harvester. As shown in Fig.2, there base, transmits vibration from external excitation to the are two sets of components to produce magnetic field oscillating weight. The vibration amplifier consists of a arranged at the two ends of container body. Each set is cantileverbeamandatipmasscomposedofthewirecoils composed of two pairs of NdFeB permanent magnets andtheirironcore,whichissimilartospringmasssystem, arranged in opposite magnetization direction and yoke to amplify the vibration from the oscillating weight. The made of electric steel. Permanent magnets are attached to harvesting mechanism mainly consists of permanent yoke,whichformsamagneticcircuitwiththecounterpart. magnet pairs and coils. The magnets are arranged to The oscillating mechanism is used to produce vibration produce changing magnetic field, from which the moving from external excitation, as shown in Fig. 3. There are a coils can produce induced voltage due to the proof mass, called oscillating weight, and two helical electromagnetic inductioneffect. springsattachedtotheoscillatingweight,whichformsthe first tier of oscillating mechanism to absorb the external
Cuboidcontainer

CHINESEJOURNALOFMECHANICALENGINEERING
Symmentric Base Spring Oscillating weight

Coils

simplifiedasFig.6,wheretheareaswithdifferentmaterial properties are displayed in different color. There are four types of material areas: permanent magnets magnetized from left to right (in red), permanent magnets magnetized fromrighttoleft(indeepblue),theelectricsteels(inpink) andtheairarea(inlightblue).

Cantilever beam

st 1 magneticpair nd 2 magneticpair

Base

Magneticfield Yoke Air

I Vibration absorber

II Vibration amplifier

III Harvesting mechanism

Fig.4. Schematicdiagramofthedualoscillatingharvester

3 SystemAnalysis
Theenergyconversion,fromkineticenergytoelectricity, is based on electromagnetic induction. The schematic diagram of magnetic structure and magnetic flux path are showninFig.5.Therearetwopairsofpermanentmagnets separated by plastic spacers, arranged with different magnetizationdirectiontoproducedifferentfluxdirections. All permanent magnets are attached to yoke made of electric steel. Yoke and permanent magnets constitute the magnetic flux path, shown as dash lines in Fig. 5. In this harvester,themagnets,yokesandspacersareallsymmetric, sothecoordinateiscreatedatthe symmetric centerwhere Z directionis perpendicular to the ground andXdirection is the magnetization direction of the permanents. When the harvester is excited by external motion, the coils will vibrate ontheYOZplane where the magnetic fluxis atits maximum.
Z
Centerof polepitch

Fig.6. FEAmodelanditsmeshinAnsys

The density of 2D flux lines, shown in Fig. 7, also indicates that the flux density is concentrated around the magnetic circuit. It also shows the flux distribution of the magneticfield,fromwhichthefluxdensityatthecenterof polepitchishigherthanthatatthefringes.

Centerof polepitch

N
Hm

X Hs O
Centerofairgap

Hm

Fig.7. 2DFluxdistributionofthemagneticfield
S
Wy Wm

N
W g

PermanentMagnet PlasticSpacer Yoke Wm: Magnetwidth

Hm: Magnetheight Hs:Spacerheight W y: Yokewidth Wg : Gapwidth

Fig.5. Schematicdiagramofmagneticstructure andthefluxpaths

FEA models were built in Ansys to investigate the magneticfield.Thestructuresrelatedtomagneticfieldare

For a single coil lying on the YOZ plane at the positionx = x 0 , the density of magnetic flux through the coilischangingalongZdirection,sothetotalfluxthrough the coil should be calculated by integral by the following ( x ) is the flux density at point equation, where B 0, z (x0 ,z) andthereistheassumptionofequaldistributionof fluxdensityalong Ydirection:
c =

Hc 2 H z- c 2 z+

. B (x ) D d z 0,z

(1)

YXIELonghan,etal:DesignandAnalysisofaMechanicalDevicetoHarvestEnergyFromHumanFootstepMotion
around the core. For analysis convenient, the cantilever beam can be equivalent to a spring with the spring constantk2 =Ebh3 / (4 L3),whereb,handLarethewidth, thicknessandthelengthofthebeam,respectivelyandEis the Youngs module of the beam. Since the mass of the beam is much less than the tip mass, itsmass isneglected foranalysisconvenience.Thevibrationamplifierissubject

Where D is the thickness of the permanent magnet, and Hc is the height of the coil. Based on the Faradays Law, theinductionvoltageofasinglecoilis
Hc

d F c d F c d z d z+ 2 & . (2) e = = = ( B (x ) D d z ) z 0, z d t d z d t d z z-Hc

to both the mechanical damping force Cm2 and the For simplification, the height of winding coils can be e which represents the energy equivalent to the height of the middle layer Hcm , and electrical damping force C assumed that there are N coils, so the total induction convertedintoelectricity. voltageatoneendofcantileverbeamis For the vibration absorber, there are two helical springs attached to the oscillating weight m1 , which can be
V = N = N d F c d F d z = N c d t d z d t

combinedtogetherandhasa combined spring constantk1 ,

. (3)

d ( d z

Hcm 2 H z- cm 2 z+

calculated by k1 = [k11 +k12] , where k11 and k12 are the springconstantoftheupperandlowerspringrespectively. The vibration absorber is also subject to mechanical dampingforceCm1 .

) z & B (x ) D d z 0, z

Theelectricaldampingforceconvertsthekineticenergy to electricity, so thepower done by the electrical damping forceshouldbeequaltotheonedonebyelectricity,thatis:

V2 . R c + R e + R L

q t) 3(

m2

m 2 k2
Cm2 Cm2

& = Fe z

(4)

q2( t )

k2 C e

Ce m1

,Re , andRL are the resistance of the coils, the WhereRc resistance in the control circuit, and the load resistance respectively. Inserting Eq. (3) into Eq. (4), then the electrical dampingforceis
Hcm d z+ N D ( H2 B ) (x , z ) d z 0 . d z z- cm 2 z & F = e R c + R e + R L 2

q1 ( t)

k1

Cm1

Fig.8. Schematicmodeloftheoscillatingmechanism (5)

DefinetheelectricaldampingcoefficientC e as
Hcm d z+ N D ( H2 B ) (x , z ) d z 0 d z z - cm 2 C e = R c + R e + R L 2

(6)

Fig. 8 shows the coupled schematic model of the oscillating mechanism, where base excitation isq1(t), and thedisplacementsoftheoscillatingweightofthevibration absorber and tip mass of the vibration amplifier are q2(t ) and q3(t) respectively, then the kinetic energy, potentialenergyandRayleighpotentialcanbeobtainedas following.Withthelagrangianmethodandlet z = q3 -q1 , y = q2 -q1 and x =q1 , the governing equation of the harvestercanbeexpressedas
+ 2 C & C m1 0 & y m m2 1 && + - 2 C m m2 2 z 0 2 - 2 C m2 2 ( C m2 & y + + C & e) z

Therearetwocoupledsuboscillatingmechanisminthis harvestingsystem:thevibrationabsorberandthevibration amplifier.Thevibrationamplifierisarectangularcantilever beam with a tip mass m2 which made up of a nonmagnetic material core and the wire coils wound

& & - m k k2 y - m x g k 1 + 2 2 - 2 1 1 = - 2 & - 2 k 2 k m x m 2 2 z 2& 2g - 2

.(7)

CHINESEJOURNALOFMECHANICALENGINEERING

4 SystemPerformance
This dualoscillating harvester is used to harvest the vertical acceleration of human footstep motion not only during the foot swinging process but also when the foot heel strike the ground. Therefore there are two major components of the footstep acceleration: one is from the footstridealongwiththebodytrunk,whichisequaltothe vertical acceleration of the body center the other is from heelstrikeagainstthegroundduringwalking,whichcanbe modeled as an inverted pendulum, therefore the vertical accelerationofbodycentercanbeexpressedasasinewave function asx =a0 sin(wt ), where a 0 can be obtained from experiment and is related to body weight, foot stride and frequency. Then the foot acceleration on the vertical directioncanbeexpressedasbycombiningasinefunction with a step function. Fig. 9 shows the sine acceleration fromfootswing,stepaccelerationfromfootstrikeandtheir combination. expressed as a step function. Sincethe body center can be

From the figure, the vibration amplifier can obviously speed up the vibration from oscillating weight, which can contributetohigherpoweroutput.

& Velocityofcoils z & Velocityofoscillatingweight y

Velocity

Timet/s

Fig.10. Velocityresponsefromfootstepacceleration Table 1. Systemparameters forsimulation

Parameter Rigidity modulus of the helical spring G/GPa Wire diameter of the helical spring d/mm The Mean diameter of the spring D/ mm No. ofactivecoilsof the spring n Value 80 1 8 5
3 k1 =G d4 /8 n D

Inputacceleration

Timet/s

(a)Sineaccelerationfromfootswing Inputacceleration

Thespringconstant k1 Youngs module of cantilever beam E/GPa Width of the cantilever beam b/mm Height of the cantilever beam h/mm Length of the cantilever beam L/mm Equivalent constant of the cantileverbeam k2 The mass of oscillating weight m1/g The mass of tip mass at cantileverbeam m2/g Dampingcoef.oftheoscillating weight beam

71 1.5 0.5 15
3 3 k 2 = Ebh /4 L

Timet/s

(b) Stepaccelerationfromfootstrike Inputacceleration

10 20

Timet/s

(c)Combinationofsineandstepacceleration

C m 1

C m1 = 2 x k m m 1( 1 + 2 2) C m2 = 2 x k 1 m 2

Damping coef. of the cantilever

Fig.9. Accelerationperformanceduringfootswinging

C m 2

First of all, the system kinematical performance is studied atthe condition of open circuit, thatis, there isno power output. The system parameters for obtaining the kinematicalperformanceandsimulationareshowninTable 1. Fig.10shows therelative velocity of oscillating weight and coils in terms of time (upper figure) with the external input of sine function (lower figure) from the footstep acceleration during normal walking (2 steps per second).

With the relative velocity of the coils and the electrical dampingcoefficient C e ,thetransientpoweroutputcanbe 2 calculated by p=C z . Fig. 11 shows the transient e & poweroutputoftheharvesterfromthefootstepacceleration. Since the acceleration from heel strike is bigger than that from the foot swing, the power output performance also showsthatthereishigherpower outputatthetimeofheel strike.

6
300

YXIELonghan,etal:DesignandAnalysisofaMechanicalDevicetoHarvestEnergyFromHumanFootstepMotion
References

200

100

0 Time t/s

Fig. 11. Transientpoweroutput

Since the power output is fluctuant and the charge for electronics usually requires steady DC power supplier, a [13] directAC/DCconverterdevelopedbyDWARI isusedto rectifyandboostthevoltage.Neglectingtheenergylossin the power rectifier, the average power output can be calculated by the integral of the electrical damping force and the relative velocity. The average power output from Fig.11 isabout100mWatthewalkingspeedof2stepsper second.

5 Conclusions
(1) A novel mechanism for energy harvesting from human footstep motion is presented. It adopts the dualoscillatingmodetoharnessaccelerationfromfootstep, including the massspring oscillating submechanism absorbexternalexcitationandthecantileverbeamwithtip mass to amplify the vibration, and the electromagnetic inductiontoconvertkineticenergytoelectricity. (2) Electromagnetic and kinematical analyses are conducted to study the harvesters performance. Analysis shows that the dualoscillating mechanism can more effectively amplify the vibration which contributes to higherpoweroutput. (3) The dualoscillating mechanism does not transmit motion andnotdirectly contact with the input component, so it is stronger and more reliable than other designs of similarfunction. (4) Theharvesteris designed to insert into shoeheel as power supplier for portable electronics, especially for the useinwildarea.Thisenergyharvestingprinciplecanalso be applied to extract kinetic energy from other kind of movement.

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Poweroutput p/mW

Biographicalnotes
XIE Longhan is currently an assistant professor at School of Mechanical&AutomotiveEngineering,SouthChinaUniversityof Technology,China.HereceivedhisPhDdegreefromtheChinese University of Hong Kong, China. His main research interests include precision engineering, mechanical design and energy harvesting. Email:xielonghan@gmail.com. DU Ruxu is currently a professor at Department of Mechanical and Automation Engineering and the director of Institute of Precision Engineering, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, China. He received his PhD degree from the University of Michigan, USA. His main research interests include precision engineering,metalstampingandcutting,andcontrol. EMail:rdu@mae.cuhk.edu.hk.