Energy Harvesting Combat Boot for Satellite Positioning
Name
micromachines-09-00244.pdf
Size
1.6 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
fa0b52476517b90393dfffaeff7089cd
Author(s)
Han, Dexter Chew Xuan
Teo, T. Hui
Akay, Haluk
Xu, Ruize
Kim, Sang-Gook
Date Issued
May 2018
Journal
Micromachines
Publisher
MDPI AG
Citation
Akay, Haluk et al. "Energy Harvesting Combat Boot for Satellite Positioning." Micromachines 9, 5 (May 2018): 244 © 2018 The Authors
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Most portable electronic devices are power-limited by battery capacity, and recharging these batteries often interrupts the user’s experience with the device. The product presented in this paper provides an alternative to powering portables by converting regular human walking motion to electricity. The device harvests electric power using air bulbs, distributed in the sole of a shoe to drive a series of micro-turbines connected to small DC motors. The number and position of air bulbs is optimized to harvest the maximum airflow from each foot-strike. The system is designed to continuously drive the micro-turbines by utilizing both outflow and inflow from the air bulbs. A prototype combat boot was fitted on the right foot of a 75 kg test subject, and produced an average continuous power on the order of 10 s of mW over a 22 Ω load during walking at 3.0 mph. This combat boot provides enough electric power to a passive GPS tracker that periodically relays geographical coordinates to a smartphone via satellite without battery replacement. Keywords: energy harvesting; GPS-equipped footwear; micro turbines; foot-step driven airflow
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.3390/mi9050244
