See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/342223221

Design of Piezoelectricity Harvester using Footwear

Conference Paper · December 2019

DOI: 10.1109/ICETAS48360.2019.9117314

CITATIONS READS
5 8,693

3 authors:

Nabeel Ahmad Muhammad Talha Rafique

National University of Sciences & Technology National University of Sciences and Technology
1 PUBLICATION 5 CITATIONS 1 PUBLICATION 5 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Rabia Jamshaid

6 PUBLICATIONS 20 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE

All content following this page was uploaded by Nabeel Ahmad on 19 June 2020.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

 2019 6th IEEE International Conference on Engineering Technologies and Applied Sciences (ICETAS)

Design of Piezoelectricity Harvester using Footwear

Nabeel Ahmad Muhammad Talha Rafique Rabia Jamshaid
Department of Mechatronics Engineering Department of Mechatronics Engineering Department of Mechatronics Engineering
College of Electrical & Mechanical College of Electrical & Mechanical College of Electrical & Mechanical
Engineering, National University of Sciences Engineering, National University of Sciences Engineering, National University of Sciences
and Technology (NUST) and Technology (NUST) and Technology (NUST)
Islamabad, Pakistan Islamabad, Pakistan Islamabad, Pakistan
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

Abstract—Harvesting mechanical energy from human excellent stability and simple handling. PVDF installed in
movement is an appropriate approach for acquiring shoes has been used for generation of electrical energy for
environment-friendly electrical energy. Common energy powering wearable devices. In response to the pressure
generation methods are pressure, heat and vibration. applied on insole of the shoe, PVDF film spreads in one
Researchers are consistently trying to find alternative ways to
direction. Due to deformation of the layer, electrons are now
utilize clean energy wasted in environment in form of these
resources. This paper demonstrates the method of harvesting imbalance and hence positive charge is accumulated on the
energy from human walk. Generated electric energy can be used compressed side and negative charge on the expanded side [4].
to power mobile phones, emergency flashlights, etc. It can also Now, the strain can come from various sources. A major
be utilized for uninterruptedly powering up a soldier’s example is the stress produced on the shoe sole which can be
wearables electronics gadgets in military operations. It can also used as a strain onto the piezoelectric generators. In order to
be used to track any soldier’s location in remote areas. It is harvest mechanical energy from walking, the piezoelectric
based on a considerably designed structure of piezo transducers effect can be introduced. This electrical energy can be used for
with a suitable thickness and diameter, which makes it easy-to- ultra-low power consumption sighting equipment such as
use and accordant with a shoe sole. When pressure is applied on
night vision and laser sights. Piezoelectric energy harvesting
piezoelectric discs, AC voltage is produced which is then
converted for desired output. After receiving desired outcomes, can also be used to directly power certain consumer electronic
this energy source can become a direct current (DC) power equipment such as cell phones, bidirectional communicators
supply with a support from power management circuits. This and pagers that satisfy the current rating. By placing
energy can be stored in any external power storage. Our design piezoelectric discs on various locations under the shoe sole
will demonstrate the feasibility of harvesting electrical energy and with the same body weight, different voltage level is
from piezoelectric to low power wearable devices. Our design obtained. A shoe has two points where the pressure exerted is
feasibility will be proved by the positive results obtained from the maximum and they are the heel and the toe [5].
the experimental prototype.
II. DESIGN
Keywords—Energy Harvesting; PZT; Control; PVDF; Buck The main concept involved in the transformation of human
Converter; Piezoelectricity; Piezoelectric transducer mechanical energy into electrical power is as follows:
I. INTRODUCTION While a person walks, he transfers some kinetic energy to
ground via trotter moment of his ankle. We’re employing that
The use of electronic devices and equipment become our certain amount of force in our design, which is transferred via
basic needs in life. A soldier needs many of them to equip his shoe. The main objective was to design a plate according to
defense equipment. To fulfill the power requirement, it the dynamics of the person who is walking. Fig. 1 describes
requires constant source [1]. One way to provide continuous the dynamics of foot while walking and pattern of force
source to our equipment is to convert our mechanical strain exerted to ground by feet. Due to that load, piezo materials
energy to electrical energy. Piezoelectric uses crystalline experience stress and this stress is converted into alternating
structures like Quartz, Topaz, Berlinite (AlPO4), Lead current (AC) voltage as it is the property of piezoelectric
Titanate (PbTiO3) etc. They generates electric charge when material. While walking, movement of the feet is called a gait
the plate of its crystals are compressed or any impact force is cycle. It consists of two phases i.e. stance phase and swing
applied on them [2]. There are two types of structures phase. We are only concerned with the stance phase, where
available as piezoelectric generators i.e. Lead Zirconate the foot is in contact with the ground with different contact
Titanate (PZT) and Polyvinylidene difluoride (PVDF). PZT is areas. The stance phase is further divided in three stages i.e.
the metallic plate with lead zirconate titanate coating on it. Initial contact, mid-stance and then propulsion. Initial contact
PZT has a crystal structure, each unit consisting of a tiny is when the foot lands on ground and weight of the body acts
tetravalent metal ion in a large divalent metal ion lattice. The on the heel as a major strike force. Then the heel rolls in for
small tetravalent metal ion in the case of PZT is usually the complete contact with the ground, called the midstance
titanium or zirconium [3]. Polyvinylidene difluoride (PVDF) phase and one leg bears complete bodyweight. In propulsion
is also a form of piezoelectric material with high flexibility, phase, body weight acts on toes [6].

978-1-7281-4082-7 /19/$31.00 ©2019 IEEE

 electrical voltage potential. The electrical power acquired at
output terminals of our piezo discs combination is an AC
which is essentially needed to be converted into a DC voltage
for DC applications.
A. Rectifier Circuit
The piezoelectric transducers produce AC power, so
converting to DC is an essential part because AC cannot
be stored. We used a bridge rectifier composed of Schottky
diodes that have the property of relatively low forward-
voltage drop and good reverse recovery, so the maximum
Fig. 1. Foot Mechanics while walking power would be delivered with minimum rectification
losses. Bridge rectifier is followed by a capacitor for
This paper involves a simple design for a shoe with piezo minimizing ripples.
sensors fitted in it. The placing of piezo sensors is done while
keeping in view of the mechanics of foot and the impact while
walking. Fig. 2, shows a piezoelectric ceramic disc that we
have used in our design.

Fig. 4. Bridge rectifier

Fig. 2. Piezoelectric ceramic disc
B. DC-DC Buck Converter
Golden layer is the ground and piezoelectric crystal is
implanted in the center as shown in Fig. 2. Piezo discs are Since the power generated by the piezoelectric transducers
placed at the heel and ball area where maximum impact force is in milli-watts and inefficient. Thus a DC-DC buck
is applied while walking. converter/regulator as shown in Fig. 5 is employed to
make our system optimal and efficient. The use of DC-DC
buck converter is essential for getting the required voltage
and current because the current(I) at the rectifier’s output
is too low for most of real-world applications. A buck
5 4 switching regulator uses a power switch, an inductor, and
a diode to transfer energy from input to output. The buck
converter’s operation depends on the conduction state of
2 the MOSFET. Buck converter’s working principle is that
the inductor in the input circuit opposes sudden change in
input current. When switch is ON the inductor stores
1 energy in the form of magnetic energy and discharges it
3 when switch is OFF [7].

Fig. 3. Placement of piezo sensors on shoe sole

A total of five PZT ceramic discs are used to generate energy

for this purpose. Our design consists of an array of
piezoelectric sensors connected in series. The front panel is
having a linear arrangement and rear heel panel is of triangular
arrangement shown in Fig. 3. The acquired output is then
forwarded to the circuit to be regulated and optimized for use.
III. CIRCUIT DESIGN AND PROTOTYPING
Our main objective was to optimize the placement of
piezoelectric discs to maximize the output power extracted by
them. The piezoelectric material undergoes stress caused by Fig. 5. DC-DC buck converter
trotter moment of our ankle and converts the energy into
C. PWM Generator IV. EQUATIONS
We have used 555 timer in astable mode to generate duty Voltage generated and the force exerted on PZT ceramic disc
cycle for switching used in buck converter. The configuration are related by the following equation:
of 555 timer we used is not common because we needed duty
. .
cycle less than 50% for our system. The configuration shown V=
.
in Fig. 6, a diode is placed across R2. This diode bypasses R2
when the capacitor is charged. This way, the capacitor charges . . .
through R1 and discharges through R2. This use of diode or V= (1)
.
leaves us full control over charging and discharging time of
capacitor [8]. where g33 represents piezoelectric voltage factor, D represents
diameter of ceramic disc, F3 or Fz or Fapp is perpendicular force
exerted on piezo and Tp is thickness of disc [9].
Buck converter transfer function:

V = D. V (2)

V = T . f. V

For our configuration of 555 timer in Astable mode, we have

used eq. (2) resulting our system’s final mathematical model.

V = 0.7R . C . f. V (3)

where f represents frequency of duty cycle, V is voltage

output from piezo as stated in eq. (1), R1 and C2 are labeled in
Fig. 6. Duty cycle generation using Astable 555 Timer Fig. 6.
For our experiments, we have mounted the piezoelectric discs V. CALCULATIONS
on a thin rubber pad (as shown in Fig. 3), which is then placed Our design consists of five piezoelectric ceramic discs. The
inside the shoe. three of which are placed at the heel and the other two are at
the foot’s ball area of sole. According to our measurements,
disc 1, 2 & 3 consume one third of heel’s area and disc 4 & 5
consume one-third of foot’s ball area individually. Table 2
shows the force distribution of each piezo disc [10].

TABLE I. FORCE DISTRIBUTION CALCULATIONS

Piezo
Average Force Distributed Fapp
Ceramic Disc
(N)
Number
Fig. 7. Placement of piezo discs on rubber pad On foot’s heel = 33% of On disc 1 / disc 2/ disc
Disc 1, 2, 3
body weight = 210.2 N 3= = 70 N
Complete block diagram of our design is:
On foot’s ball = 19% of On disc 4 / disc 5
Disc 4, 5
body weight = 121 N = = 40.3 N

As mentioned in section II, we have used PZT ceramic disc

having following properties:

TABLE II. PROPERTIES OF PZT DISCS

Parameter Value
Piezoelectric strain factor d33 470x10-12 C/N
Density ρ 7.9x103 Kg/m3
Piezoelectric voltage factor g33 24x10-3 V-m/N
Diameter of complete disc 27 mm
Diameter D of ceramic crystal mounted on disc 20 mm
Thickness of piezo disc Tp 0.6 mm
Fig. 8. Block diagram a.
Provided by BeStar Holding Co., Ltd. (China).
Table 3 enlists the voltage generated by each piezo disc,
calculated using the values in Table 1, Table 2 and (1).

TABLE III. VOLTAGE GENERATION AT DIFFERENT SPOTS

Piezoelectric Ceramic Disc Average Voltage Generated

Number (V)
Disc 1, 2, 3 3.21 each
Disc 4, 5 1.83 each
All combined in series 13.29

For our designed system, Vin = 14V and desired Vout = 5V. So
using (1) duty cycle is calculated as nearly 35%. Operating
frequency of our device depends upon the state of motion i.e.
it will increase with speedier walking. So our calculations and
design is based on average frequency
f =2Hz. so
Fig. 11. Experimental setup
time period T = = 0.5 s. Using (2), D = 35 % = 0.35
That means we need to generate 35% duty cycle with 2Hz Following table shows the outputs of piezo discs after an
frequency from our 555 timer, which is further set accordingly average of 20 casual walking steps with a load of 10 kΩ
with R and C values. recorded with the help of a multi-meter:
VI. RESULTS TABLE IV. DC VOLTAGE OUTPUTS WHILE WALKING
Simulation results of our circuit using PROTEUS are as Average
follows: No. of disc used Output Power (mW)
Voltage(V)
3 9.8 0.98
4 11.7 1.17
5 14.1 1.41

Following table shows the outputs of piezo discs after an

average of 20 casual jogging steps with identical load using
Multimeter.

TABLE V. DC VOLTAGE OUTPUTS WHILE RUNNING

Average
No. of disc used Output Power (mW)
Voltage(V)
3 18.1 2.71
4 21.4 3.21
Fig. 9. Proteus simulation results 6 24.8 3.72

When the same person walked with the shoe, we recorded the The experiment of running is only for testing purposes. Our
single pulse in CRO as shown in Fig. 9. final results are based on the data we acquired by walking.
While observing the experimental results of our designed
piezoelectricity generator, we connected a microcontroller at
3 volts/division its load end. We could not get our microcontroller working
but got an estimation of output power that our harvester can
provide. Following table indicates results comparison of our
harvester with another research work that is somewhat similar
to our work.

TABLE VI. COMPARISON BETWEEN OUR DESIGN AND PREVIOUS WORK

0.5 sec/division Voltage Output at

Power Output (mW)
Piezo (V)
9.27 mW with
Our Design 14.1
Fig. 10. Real-time single impact oscilloscope output microcontroller at load end
Energy
Scavenging
Fig. 11 shows the setup for testing the hardware designed. with Shoe-
5.02 8.4 mW with 500kΩ
Steady 4.84 volts are generated after 20 steps casual walk. Mounted
Piezoelectrics
[11].
 VII. CONCLUSION
The idea of energy harvesting from piezoelectric is a good
source of clean and green renewable energy. In this work, we
have illustrated the design of piezoelectric energy harvester
from the human walk and then use it to power up wearable
electronic devices. Real time results have been recorded
while walking with our piezo generator. The voltage output
level of piezoelectric discs is proportional to the strain on it.
We have generated around 15 volts and converted it into an
optimal power source i.e. used buck regulator to create steady
5 volts and boost up current level. However, we could not
achieve an abundant output power level to charge any device
like a mobile phone because our harvester can only provide
output current as much as 2 milli-amps (mA) and as much as
10 mW output power. But still there is room for
improvement, we can enhance the output power by using
more piezoelectric discs in the shoe. Whereas, we
successfully harvested enough output to use for powering
sighting systems such as night vision, laser sights and sensors
like GPS receiver.
REFERENCES
[1] Utkarsh Mehrotra" Walking Charger Using Piezo-Electric Material."
International Journal For Technological Research In Engineering
(2016).
[2] Tanvi Dikshit, Dhawal Shrivastava, Abhijeet Gorey, Ashish Gupta,
Parag Parandkar, Sumant Katiyal “Energy Harvesting via
Piezoelectricity.” 4th National Conference; INDIACom (2010).
[3] Snehalika, M. Uday Bhaskar" Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting from
Shoes of Soldier." 1st IEEE International Conference on Power
Electronics. Intelligent Control and Energy Systems (ICPEICES-
2016).
[4] Mohammad Saffri Mazalan, Roslina Mohamad, Murizah Kassim,
Shahrani Shahbudin " Journal on Power Harvesting Shoe using
Piezoelectric Shoe For External Power Storage." Indonesian Journal of
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (2018).
[5] Joses Paul P, Samuel Desmond Tutu R, Kevin Richards W, Maria
Jerome V "Piezoelectric Wireless Power Transfer – A Mobile Charging
Technique”.
[6] Rohit Rajput, Girish Salunke, Ravindra Thakare " Journal on Study on
Energy Generating Shoes." International Journal of Science
Technology and Management (2016).
[7] ECE Tutorials. Buck Converter: Principle and applications. [Online].
Available from: ecetutorials.com/electrical/buck-converter-principle-
of-operation-applications/ [Accessed 14th September 2019].
[8] Dummies: A Wiley Brand. Electronics Components: Calculate the duty
cycle of an Astable 555 circuit by Doug Lowe. [Online]. Available
from:
dummies.com/programming/electronics/components/electronics-
components-calculate-the-duty-cycle-of-an-astable-555-circuit/
[Accessed 14th September 2019]
[9] Sultan Singh, Vijay Kumar Gupta, Sujoy Mukherjee " Piezo-Electric
Based Energy Harvester Embedded in Shoe For Wearable Electronics"
Materials Physics and Mechanics 37 (2018).”
[10] Mary Josephine Hessert, Mitul Vyas, Jason Leach, Kun Hu, Lewis A
Lipsitz, Vera Novak “Article on Foot Pressure Distribution during
Walking in Young and Old Adults” BioMed Central (2005).
[11] Nathan S. Shenck, Joseph A, Paradiso “Energy Scavenging with Shoe-
Mounted Piezoelectrics. ” IEEE (2001).

View publication stats