A Feasibility Analysis of Triboelectric Energy Harvester for Hip Implants

A triboelectric energy harvester for the detection of hip implant loading is presented. The energy harvester is designed to be placed in the femoral head and harvest energy from natural human motion to convert conventional implants into smart implants for THR health monitoring. The harvester is tested under different loading and for different activities of daily living. The generated voltage and power signals were found to be proportional to the amount of load and frequencies of the activities. This study can open the door and lead to new research in load monitoring for total hip replacement utilizing a triboelectric energy harvesting mechanism.