Harvesting energy from human movement
Thursday, February 14, 2008 by PPV
Researchers have built a device resembling a knee brace that can generate usable amounts of electrical energy as a person walks. The brace, described in an article in the journal Science, stores the energy lost when a human brakes the knee after swinging the leg forward to take a step.
Wearing a device on each leg, an individual can generate up to 5 watts of electricity with little additional physical effort, according to the release. Walking quickly, however, generates as much as 13 watts. At that rate, when the energy is stored in a battery, one minute of walking time could provide enough electricity to sustain 30 minutes of talk-time on a mobile phone.
More: here and here
Wearing a device on each leg, an individual can generate up to 5 watts of electricity with little additional physical effort, according to the release. Walking quickly, however, generates as much as 13 watts. At that rate, when the energy is stored in a battery, one minute of walking time could provide enough electricity to sustain 30 minutes of talk-time on a mobile phone.
More: here and here
