1 Copyright © 2013 by ASME Proceedings of the ASME 2013 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences & Computers and Information in Engineering Conference IDETC/CIE 2013 August 4-7, 2013, Portland, Oregon, USA DETC2013-12310 ENERGY HARVESTING FOR SMART SHOES: A REAL LIFE APPLICATION Emanuele Frontoni, Adriano Mancini, Primo Zingaretti Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell’Informazione (DII) Univ. Politecnica delle Marche, Ancona, Italy Andrea Gatto Dipartimento di Ing. “Enzo Ferrari” Univ. di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Italy ABSTRACT Advanced technical developments have increased the efficiency of devices in capturing trace amounts of energy from the environment (such as from human movements) and transforming them into electrical energy (e.g., to instantly charge mobile devices). In addition, advancements in microprocessor technology have increased power efficiency, effectively reducing power consumption requirements. In combination, these developments have sparked interest in the engineering community to develop more and more applications that utilize energy harvesting for power. The approach here described aims to designing and manufacturing an innovative easy-to-use and general-purpose device for energy harvesting in general purpose shoes. The novelty of this device is the integration of polymer and ceramic piezomaterials accomplished by injection molding. In this spirit, this paper examines different devices that can be built into a shoe, (where excess energy is readily harvested) and used for generating electrical power while walking. A Main purpose is the development of an indoor localization system embedded in shoes that periodically broadcasts a digital RFID as the bearer walks. Results are encouraging and real life test are conducted on the first series of prototypes. INTRODUCTION Consumer reliance on wearable electronic devices has grown significantly in the past decade. As wearable electronic devices evolve and proliferate, there will be a growing need for more power delivery to distributed points around the human body. With increasing use, demands for decreased size and enhanced capabilities, necessitating new ways to supply electric energy to these devices, arise. Today, batteries provide much of storage and power delivery is via wires. Until now, chemical-cell batteries have been sufficient, but replacing them is a costly nuisance, and this solution will become less practical as demands evolve. The current approach to power distribution is clearly becoming problematic as more appliances are carried. We are forced to either use more small batteries that require replacement everywhere or run wires through our clothing to supply appliances from a central power source. Both are undesirable. Clearly a better solution is to generate power where it is being used, bypassing the storage and distribution problem altogether. A new approach, which eliminates the power wiring problem, is emerging: developing and storing electric energy at the devices themselves by scavenging waste energy from human activities [1]. The human activity of walking is an important source of energy harvesting. Starner in 1995 estimated that 67 watts of power are available in the heel movement of an average (68 kg) person walking at a brisk pace (two steps per second with the foot moving 5 cm vertically) [2]. But only a few percentage of this energy is suitable for the alimentation of an electronic device. In the aforementioned case, with a mechanical power loss of 75%, electromechanical efficiency of 50%, electrical power loss of 10%, and daily rate of 16.6%, the theoretical limit of piezoelectric energy harvesting is approximated to be 1.265 Wh [3]. This level of power extraction from walking would certainly interfere greatly with one's gait. Our philosophy, in contrast, has been to try to generate power entirely parasitically, that is through mechanisms that capture and make use of energy normally dissipated wastefully into the environment. There is much less energy of this type than available through deliberate means of harvesting human power (e.g., through a hand crank or foot pedal), but it is our goal to unobtrusively collect energy for low-power applications. We have approached this problem by using the energy from the weight transfer during a step to perform useful work. We believe that our approach has the potential to solve these problems for a class of wearable devices by placing both