Hybrid Energy Harvester from Wireless Charging and Body Heat to Power-up IoT Devices

As we move towards Industrial Revolution 4.0, the miniaturization of electronic devices has introduced a new type of challenge where the dependency on the battery as a sole power supply is no longer practical due to its limited capacity, costly replacement process, and recently, new regulations set forth to minimize the usage of chemicals in batteries. Hence, an alternative method explored to mitigate this issue is by using energy harvesting. In this paper, energy harvesting methods from human body heat and wireless charging are studied and developed as potential energy sources. The feasibility of two systems integration that will form a Hybrid Energy Harvester device which theoretically may increase the output power required for the application is explored. A mathematical model for thermal energy harvesting is first developed using MATLAB/Simulink and simulation of and the wireless charging analyzed using Multisim. Finally, the prototype of each module was constructed, analyzed, and integrated into a prototype hybrid energy harvester device. The maximum output power achieved for the thermal energy harvester and wireless charging are 22.4mV and 0.947mV respectively. The feasibility of the device is proven and thus opens an opportunity to further study the application.