An approach in energy harvesting from fitness equipment

One of the most commonly used energy harvesting fitness equipment is the propelled bicycle, where conventional rotary generators are used along with mechanical equipments as peripherals to produce power. There is much other fitness equipment which gives linear oscillatory motion can be directly utilized to produce power with the help of permanent magnet linear generator. The permanent magnet linear generators have advantages that it doesn´t require any linear motion to rotary conversion; the linear generator is simple in construction and economical. This paper will investigate the feasibility of using a permanent magnet linear generator to harvest energy from new fitness equipment called BELLY REDUCER. A tubular type permanent magnet linear generator has designed to produce current in stator winding. The human kinetic energy transferred in the machine during exercise will be utilized to reciprocate the slider of the permanent magnet linear generator to induce electromotive force in the stator winding. The output from the permanent magnet linear generator will be variable so bridge rectifier circuit has to be connected to get the constant output. The output power is stored in the battery banks for later use. The conventional single stator linear generator gives low power output, where as the stator used here is cascaded which will give high power output. Magnetic field analysis used for finding force, power losses and induced voltage which are primary factors influencing the performance of the product.