A hybrid energy scavenging topology for human-powered mobile electronics

Wearable electronic devices are becoming inevitable part of life in this century. Traditional way of powering wearable electronics devices lies on batteries. As power requirements decrease for most wearable devices, it is feasible to harvest a useful amount of energy from a normal range of human activity. Researchers so far have investigated only one type of actuation techniques such as electromagnetic, electrostatic, or piezoelectric to harvest energy from normal activity of human. This paper presents a hybrid piezoelectric/permanent magnet energy scavenging device topology. The proposed topology takes advantage of two different actuation techniques. The paper presents the analytical modeling of hybrid piezoelectric and electromagnetic parts. Presented results demonstrate the advantages of hybrid topologies, as enabling technology for future wearable electronic devices.