Energy-harnessing footwear using combined electromechanical and piezoelectric transducers for charging supercapacitors

• Main Authors: Altarejos, Loelle Erico F., Apuli, Edmund Joseph R., Dela Cruz, Marcel Elli G., Gamilla, Arthur Josef G., Garcia, Silver Rae L.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2009
• Subjects: Power resources; Piezoelectric transducers; Electromechanical devices
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_bachelors/14456
• Institution: De La Salle University

With our energy resource gradually depleting, limitations of battery life not coping up, and with the advent of mobile technology that makes the demand for portable energy sources ever increasing, harvesting the so called wasted or dissipated energy from human locomotion was explored. This study shows how energy harnessing footwear was developed using combined piezoelectric and electromechanical transducer, both integrated in a shoe. In this paper, different transducer configurations are tackled to obtain the one with the highest possible output. Environment friendly Ultracapacitors, also known as supercapacitors, will serve as the energy storage device for the developed system. The harvested energy will be stored, and will be utilized to power low-power devices such as light Emitting Diodes and the greatly sought and most innovative technology today, the Cellular phone."