Eco-Friendly Power Generator Cum Fitness Analyzer Sanni Kumar, Roop Pahuja * Dr B R Ambedkar National Institute of Technology Jalandhar (Punjab), Jalandhar 144011, India Corresponding Author Email: pahujar@nitj.ac.in https://doi.org/10.18280/i2m.190102 ABSTRACT Received: 17 Otcober 2019 Accepted: 29 December 2019 The modern challenge faced with the global energy situation is the growing energy demand and the strong dependence on unsustainable fossil fuels. Another concurrent issue is the adverse health and socio-economic implications of adult obesity. Human Power Generation, which uses metabolized human energy to generate electrical power, could potentially address both these challenges. This paper discusses design and development of a method of exercising on a bicycle to convert the mechanical rotational power of human peddling to useable electrical energy using a dynamo integrated charge controller that charges a battery. Also, during exercising the health parameters such as body temperature and heart rate are reliably monitored using wearable sensors and wireless embedded processer to analyze the fitness level of a person and issue health alarm to prevent mishap during exercising. Further, the data is wirelessly transmitted to remote user interface for monitoring, logging and analyzing the electrical power generation capabilities of a person along with health condition. Experimental proven results indicate that system is capable to generate electrical energy during cycling by young humans with typical average efficiency of 17% or more. The system model is a smart power-generating exercising mechanism that is attractive and effective to be used in homes, gyms, health clubs and other extraterrestrial environments as a source of low cost sustainable green energy cum fitness analyzer. Keywords: body temperature, body mass index, heart rate, dynamo, human exercisig power, fitness model, virtual instrument 1. INTRODUCTION The world’s energy consumption is all time high with the demand continuously increasing. This situation brings up several challenges that need to be addressed [1, 2] as: • Depletion due to finite availability of non-renewable energy sources, e.g. fossil fuels. • Increasing population, especially in developing countries which lack resources for clean energy. • Environmental pollution, e.g. with coal use in power plants. • Global warming with the related climate changes. • Adverse implications of use of non-renewable energy resources such as burning of fossil fuel. • Powering new technological applications such as ultraportable electronics devices, mobile chargers, laptops, wearable devices, remote wireless sensor nodes etc. that require portable low power DC power sources. • Innovating simple, affordable and eco-friendly alternative means of energy harvesting and generation. These challenges have been the reason for much controversy in the developed world; however, recent investigations have also shown a much more basic challenge of non-availability of power in the less developed parts of the world. Data from the World Bank in 2016 estimated that about 12.65% of the world’s population has no access to electricity with Indian population being 22.38% [3] especially in rural areas (Table 1). Challenges seldom come one at a time; in parallel with the energy problem, much of the world is also facing health issues of overweight and obesity. The World Health Organization estimated that in 2016, 39% of women and 39% of men in the world with age 18 and above were overweight [4]. Overweight and obesity are often associated with low levels of physical activity [5]. Obesity decreases mechanical efficiency refers to the ability of an individual to transfer energy consumed by external work and high intensity exercise performance [6]. Obesity is also associated with musculoskeletal structure changes, decreased mobility, modification of the gait pattern, and changes in energy expenditure for a given activity [5]. Being obese or overweight has serious implications on one’s health. The American Heart Association recognizes the condition of obese to produce significantly higher risks towards high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, diabetes, heart disease and heart stroke [4]. Physical activity such as walking, running, cycling etc. is recommended to reduce excess body weight, prevent body weight regain, and decrease the subsequent risk of developing health related problems [5]. A solution that can address these two great challenges to control obesity and generate eco-friendly electrical energy, is physical exercisisng and the efficient use of human power during exercising for power generation. The main source of body energy is metabolized from sugar, fat and the output is configured to either extract direct mechanical work or convert the work to useable electrical energy. Human power has been instrumental in solving problems since many decades. Use of flywheels, hand cranks and pedal power were efficient means of coupling human power to different applications [7, 8]. Bio-mechanical energy of human muscular strength during exercising is harnessed to generate eco-friendly electrical energy to power engineered Instrumentation Mesure Métrologie Vol. 19, No. 1, February, 2020, pp. 9-18 Journal homepage: http://iieta.org/journals/i2m 9