Analysis of Upper Bound Power Output for a Wrist-Worn Rotational Energy Harvester from Real-World Measured Inputs

Energy harvesting from human motion addresses the growing need for battery-free health and wellness sensors in wearable applications. The major obstacles to harvesting energy in such applications are low and random frequencies due to the nature of human motion. This paper presents a generalized rotational harvester model in 3 dimensions to determine the upper bound of power output from real world measured data. Simulation results indicate much space for improvement on power generation comparing to existing devices. We have developed a rotational energy harvester for human motion that attempts to close the gap between theoretical possibility and demonstrated devices. Like previous work, it makes use of magnetically plucked piezoelectric beams. However, it more fully utilizes the space available and has many degrees of freedom available for optimization. Finally we present a prototype harvester based on the coupled harvester model with preliminary experimental validation.