Energy harvesting from human locomotion

Energy harvesting has become a need for the society due to the continual rise of the demand for energy. As fossil fuels around the world depletes, alternate means of harvesting energy is required. This paper discusses the energy harvesting techniques from human locomotion mainly the energy lost to the surroundings during heel strikes. Motion Tracking System (QTM), Pressure sensors and Electromyography (EMG) techniques are utilized to analyze the human locomotion during a normal human gait cycle and estimate the energy available during locomotion. The data is then made into constraint in which models of energy harvesting devices are built. Linear and rotary electromagnetic generation methods are proposed to harvest energy from the heel strike. A testing platform was built using a pneumatic actuator to simulate the human gait cycle. The outcome of the experiments shows that linear generative methods are not effective as it produced minute amounts of energy while rotary generators presented significantly better results in terms of efficiency.