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Full article: https://phys.org/news/2020-10-device-...

NEW DEVICE POWERS WEARABLE SENSORS THROUGH HUMAN MOTION
by California Institute of Technology

Caltech's Wei Gao, assistant professor of medical engineering in the Andrew and Peggy Cherng Department of Medical Engineering, has been developing these sensors as well as novel approaches to power them using the human body itself.

Batteries are an option, but are not necessarily ideal because they can be bulky, heavy, and run out of charge.

But like all electronic devices, these wearable sensors need a source of power.

Now, Gao has developed a new way to power wireless wearable sensors: He harvests kinetic energy that is produced by a person as they move around.

This energy harvesting is done with a thin sandwich of materials (Teflon, copper, and polyimide) that are attached to the person's skin.

As the person moves, these sheets of material rub against a sliding layer made of copper and polyimide, and generate small amounts of electricity.

The effect, known as triboelectricity, is perhaps best illustrated by the static electric shock a person might receive after walking across a carpeted floor and then touching a metal doorknob.

Our triboelectric generator, also called a nanogenerator, has a stator, which is fixed to the torso, and a slider, which is attached to the inside of the arm.

However, Gao's wearable sensors have low power requirements, and the system stores up generated electricity in a capacitor... until there is enough charge to take a reading from the sensor and wirelessly send the data to a cell phone through Bluetooth.