Electromagnetic Respiratory Effort Harvester: Human Testing and Metabolic Cost Analysis

Remote health monitoring is increasingly recognized as a valuable tool in chronic disease management. Continuous respiratory monitoring could be a powerful tool in managing chronic diseases, however it is infrequently performed because of obtrusiveness and inconvenience of the existing methods. The movements of the chest wall and abdominal area during normal breathing can be monitored and harvested to enable self-powered wearable biosensors for continuous remote monitoring. This paper presents human testing results of a light-weight (30 g), wearable respiratory effort energy harvesting sensor. The harvester output voltage, power, and its metabolic burden, are measured on twenty subjects in two resting and exercise conditions each lasting 5 min. The system includes two off-the-shelf miniature electromagnetic generators harvesting and sensing thoracic and abdominal movements. Modules can be placed in series to increase the output voltage for rectification purposes. Electromagnetic respiratory effort harvester/sensor system can produce up to 1.4 V, 6.44 mW, and harvests 30.4 mJ during a 5-min exercise stage. A statistical paired t-test analysis of the calculated EE confirmed there is no significant change (P>0.05) in the metabolic rate of subjects wearing the electromagnetic harvester and biosensor.