Smartphones on the market and wearable computers have become incredibly popular lately, but batteries can’t keep pace with our ever-increasing desire for power. These personal electronics can nearly do it all, but after a few hours of heavy usage, it’s time for you to recharge. Can we ever move forward from our addiction to your wall socket? Researchers in Germany have designed a little system embedded in a pair of shoes that effectively harvests the energy expended by the straightforward act of walking. On this system, you can actually power your electronics as you stroll around.
In the diary Smart Materials and Set ups, Klevis Ylli and their team outline how they made it possible to use two different kinds of harvesters to capture significant amounts of energy from the swing with the foot and the strike with the heel. The first harvester accelerates magnets through a collection of coils when the foot swings, and the second employs frequency up-conversion to trigger a spring-loaded magnetic circuit into
resonance if your heel strikes the terrain.
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