Eco Gym: Electricity Generation from Manual Treadmill

Increased energy demands and a significant reliance on fossil fuels for energy production are among the challenges we encountered because of modernization. In addition to that, modernization also caused adult obesity, which has negative impact on human health and has socio-economic consequences. This work presents power generation by humans through manual treadmills which leverages digested human energy to generate electric power and effectively addresses both above-mentioned issues. The treadmill is a widely used aerobic workout machine in gyms that consumes a lot of energy while releasing a lot of heat. This work is aimed at designing and developing energy-generating treadmills which generate electric energy on usage by humans. The proposed treadmill is composed of a manual flatbed that generates electricity using an electromagnetic DC dynamo generator connected to the front axle flywheel of treadmill. The whole system is composed of a treadmill, DC dynamo generator and inverter (to run both DC and AC loads). In this work, the system's power generation potential has been determined by using different belt speeds of the treadmill. The overall system is well-controlled and efficient and includes a display screen (developed using smart mirror technology). The potential uses, applications and benefits of the proposed system are also summarized in this manuscript.