Performance Analysis of Low Voltage Converters for Completely Integrable Wearable Human Motion Energy Harvester

Electromagnetic human motion energy harvesters have shown good results previously. As the direct output of a harvester cannot be used for powering electronic devices, the paper focuses on a complete setup of rectifier, ultra-low voltage converter and a capacitor charger. The aim is to evaluate performance of off-the-shelf elements and modules for electromagnetic human motion harvester. Three commercially available converters were tested in a controlled environment and on a human separately. The best configuration obtained 4.9V on a capacitor in less than 5 minutes with peak efficiency of 22.7%, presenting a fully autonomous wearable human motion harvester as a usable voltage source.