Human as an energy transmitter

• Main Author: Wah, Chloe Juin
• Other Authors: Amer M. Y. M. Ghias
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2021
• Subjects: Engineering::Electrical and electronic engineering
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/154174
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The human body carries out a diversity of activities round the clock, even when one is asleep. This implies that the human body can potentially function as a powerhouse that can generate different forms of energy to complete tasks. In that sense, the body can potentially be regarded as a great portable power source as it could generate around 58.2 W/m2 waste heat at resting metabolic rate. Humans utilise a variety of portable devices in their daily lives, ranging from mobile phones, smart watches, headsets, and other smart devices. The requirements to charge up these low-power devices could potentially be fulfilled if waste heat generated from humans could be harvested. Current studies of human thermal energy harvesting method mainly revolves around supplying the harvested energy to low-power consumption devices such as LED and low light intensity bulbs which may not be applicable to complement human activities. As such, the integration of a storage unit is proposed, and this provides flexibility to the use of the harvested energy. The waste heat can be harvested, stored, and used to power up any low-power devices such as mobile phones and speakers. Another challenge with current human thermal energy harvesting method would be its effectiveness. Most devices are only able to harvest human waste heat when one is motionless, and this is due to the inconveniences brought about when traveling around with the thermal harvesting device. This project also proposes to integrate circuits into equipment such as bicycle, as a possible way to harvest human waste heat during active workouts. This would improve the efficiency of energy harvesting as the amount of thermal energy dissipated by the body during active workouts is higher. The proposed method would drive to reduce the complexity of regularly charging smart devices and potentially integrating it onto clothes or any ornaments, and ultimately, to create wearables which are self-powered. Further in this context, an exploration of basic principles of the thermo-electric generator and the relevant parameters for implementing a simple device as the pilot project, and a detailed description on wearables using thermo-electric devices, and what are the considerations on designing a charging device to harvest the energy from the human body are discussed.