Whole Body Human Power-Based Energy Harvesting using a Conductive Embroidered Cloth and a Power Aggregation Circuit

Abstract

This paper proposes a whole body human power-based energy harvesting (HPBEH) scheme which aggregates the power from multiple HPBEH devices distributed on a special cloth embroidered with conductive threads. Each HPBEH devices is connected by using a special connector consisting of a tack and a clutch without one-to-one wiring. In a conventional HPBEH system, each device individually has its own HPBEH element. Power aggregation system using a multiple HPBEH devices can supply higher power than conventional EH systems to a power-hungry device. And each HPBEH devices has a flexible piezoelectric element (PE) placed in the whole body joints and sole. In the flexible PEs, the output voltage and the time when output reaches the peak are different. The experimental results demonstrate the feasibility of the power aggregation system in those case.