Human Footsteps-based Energy Harvesting Using Piezoelectric Elements

Human footsteps are one of the renewable energy resources harvested from kinetic energy. Relevant technologies that extract energy from vibrations and pressure are used to convert kinetic energy into electricity. This study aimed to utilize a wasted energy source as an alternative solution to reduce reliance on traditional power sources. A human-footstep-based floor design was presented in this work to harvest beneficial electrical power. The proposed method incorporates materials available on the market, such as piezoelectric transducers, wood plates, hot melt glue sticks, and foam plates, which make the proposed design acceptable and applicable. Besides the materials mentioned above, a simple voltage doubler circuit was used for the DC power extraction, with a maximum harvested power of 249.6 mW. The harvested power can be utilized to power up micro-devices that require electrical power in the range of microwatts or a few milliwatts, such as networks of wireless sensors. Finally, two LEDs were successfully lit as a real load by the harvested electrical energy from human footsteps via the floor tile, which has dimensions of 405 mm by 405 mm.