Preliminary investigation of a mixed inductive-piezoelectric energy harvester from human walking

Recent progress in low power electronics, sensors and transmitters, as well as suitable electronics for power harvesting, makes autonomous devices a concrete possibility. Environmental and human motion mechanical vibration sources have gained much attention as potential sources of energy. In this paper preliminary results from investigation of a simple mixed inductive-piezoelectric energy harvester from human walking are presented. The paper mainly focuses on the architecture of the harvester and on the analysis of the voltage signals generated by the inductive harvester. Preliminary tests aimed at investigating the proposed mechanism were performed by using the harvester device worn by different users to collect energy during human motion at different speed.