A piezoelectric energy-harvesting shoe system for podiatric sensing
- Resource Type
- Conference
- Authors
- Meier, Rich; Kelly, Nicholas; Almog, Omri; Chiang, Patrick
- Source
- 2014 36th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 2014 36th Annual International Conference of the IEEE. :622-625 Aug, 2014
- Subject
- Bioengineering
Footwear
Foot
Microcontrollers
Force
Energy harvesting
Legged locomotion
Capacitors
- Language
- ISSN
- 1094-687X
1558-4615
This paper provides an energy-harvesting, shoe-mounted system for medical sensing using piezoelectric transducers for generating power. The electronics are integrated inside a conventional consumer shoe, measuring the pressure of the wearer's foot exerted on the sole at six locations. The electronics are completely powered by the harvested energy from walking or running, generating 10–20 μJ of energy per step that is then consumed by capturing and storing the force sensor data. The overall shoe system demonstrates that wearable sensor electronics can be adequately powered through piezoelectric energy-harvesting.