Don Isarakorn

The aim of this study was to investigate the real-world electrical parameters that strongly affected the performance of a triboelectric energy-harvesting floor tile design: triboelectric material thickness, cover plate displacement distance or gap width, and cover plate pressing frequency, so that real-world specifications of the harvesting floor tile can be accurately specified. The structure of the designed triboelectric energy harvester, with readily available polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) film and aluminum foil, was simple and hence easy to fabricate, and the material cost was low. A square wave was used to simulate the pressing frequency on the test bench’s cover plate. The results showed that the voltage and current were proportional to the gap width, and the thinner the triboelectric layer thickness, the higher the output voltage and current. A test bench with a 0.2 mm thick PTFE triboelectric layer generated the highest energy output. In a later experiment, a triboelectric energy-harvesting floor tile (TEHFT) prototype was constructed with 0.1 and 0.2 mm thick PTFE layers. We found that at 2 Hz stepping frequency and 0.1 mm PTFE thickness, the optimal load and cumulative energy of the TEHFT were 0.8 MΩ and 3.81 mJ, respectively, while with 0.2 mm PTFE thickness, these two parameters were 1.1 MΩ and 7.69 mJ, respectively. The TEHFT with 0.2 mm thick PTFE layer was able to illuminate a series of 100 to 150 LEDs, sufficient power to drive small electronics and sensor nodes. This discovery provides important data on the structure, material, and contact surface area of a TEHFT that can be adjusted to suit specific requirements of a special function triboelectric energy harvester.

This paper proposed a more-accurate-than-conventional measurement technique for determining electrical power across exceptionally high-impedance of triboelectric energy harvester (TEH). The key idea of this proposed technique was to measure the voltage across an introduced, parallelly-connected resistor divider to the oscilloscope instead of the voltage across the harvester. An experiment was set up to verify the measurement accuracy performance of this technique against the ideal theoretical values. The maximum percentage error found was only 2.30%, while the conventional measurement technique could not be used to measure voltage across high impedance TEH at all because the readings were not accurate, i.e., the measurement error would be at least over 10%. Therefore, we concluded that this proposed technique should always be used instead of the conventional measurement technique for power measurement of any TEH. A suggestion that we would like to offer to researchers investigating or developing a TEH is that, in using our measurement technique, a good starting point for a load to probe resistance ratio is 1:10, a ratio that worked well for our TEH test bench that we developed.

This work investigated the mechanical and electrical behaviors of piezoelectric and triboelectric energy harvesters (PEHs and TEHs, respectively) as potential devices for harvesting impact-driven energy. PEH and TEH test benches were designed and developed, aiming at harvesting low-frequency mechanical vibration generated by human activities, for example, a floor-tile energy harvester actuated by human footsteps. The electrical performance and behavior of these energy harvesters were evaluated and compared in terms of absolute energy and power densities that they provided and in terms of these energy and power densities normalized to unit material cost. Several aspects related to the design and development of PEHs and TEHs as the energy harvesting devices were investigated, covering the following topics: construction and mechanism of the energy harvesters; electrical characteristics of the fabricated piezoelectric and triboelectric materials; and characterization of the energy harvesters. At a 4 mm gap width between the cover plate and the stopper (the mechanical actuation components of both energy harvesters) and a cover plate pressing frequency of 2 Hz, PEH generated 27.64 mW, 1.90 mA, and 14.39 V across an optimal resistive load of 7.50 kΩ, while TEH generated 1.52 mW, 8.54 µA, and 177.91 V across an optimal resistive load of 21 MΩ. The power and energy densities of PEH (4.57 mW/cm³ and 475.13 µJ/cm³) were higher than those of TEH (0.50 mW/cm³, and 21.55 µJ/cm³). However, when the material cost is taken into account, TEH provided higher power and energy densities per unit cost. Hence, it has good potential for upscaling, and is considered well worth the investment. The advantages and disadvantages of PEH and TEH are also highlighted as main design factors.

This paper introduces the design and characterization of a double-stage energy harvesting floor tile that uses a piezoelectric cantilever to generate electricity from human footsteps. A frequency up-conversion principle, in the form of an overshooting piezoelectric cantilever, plucked with a proof mass is utilized to increase energy conversion efficiency. The overshoot of the proof mass is implemented by a mechanical impact between a moving cover plate and a stopper to prevent damage to the plucked piezoelectric element. In an experiment, the piezoelectric cantilever of a floor tile prototype was excited by a pneumatic actuator that simulated human footsteps. The key parameters affecting the electrical power and energy outputs were investigated by actuating the prototype with a few kinds of excitation input. It was found that, when actuated by a single simulated footstep, the prototype was able to produce electrical power and energy in two stages. The cantilever resonated at a frequency of 14.08 Hz. The output electricity was directly proportional to the acceleration of the moving cover plate and the gap between the cover plate and the stopper. An average power of 0.82 mW and a total energy of 2.40 mJ were obtained at an acceleration of 0.93 g and a gap of 4 mm. The prototype had a simple structure and was able to operate over a wide range of frequencies.

This paper introduces the feasibility examination of indoor positioning system using the Bluetooth low energy (BLE) and the radio-frequency identification (RFID) devices to further apply in the diagnosis of neurodegenerative disease leading an unusual human body motion. Experimentally, a BLE module and a RFID tag are simulated to be the wearable devices mounted to human body, moving with common body motions. Their movements affecting on position tracking efficiency are investigated through smartphone and ultra-high frequency RFID reader, respectively. The results show that a BLE device presents the best position sensing ability.

Piezoelectric has drawn significant attention as the smart and straightforward generator as energy harvester for decades. The principle of this theology is to transform the vibration from itself blending become electricity through the piezoelectric effect phenomenal. Piezoelectric has been used to generate electricity through the cantilever form. However, it still hard to apply with the rotational movement. This research represents the practical optimization test of the rotational piezoelectric generator for a low-speed application such as application in ocean wave or wearable device under the speed between 10 to 100 RPM. The design was applied a pushing force of two permanent magnets which, attached at the far end of the piezoelectric cantilever in stator and the rotational disk in rotor. When the application load drives the rotor, the magnetic field from each permanent magnet will repulse each other and generate AC electricity. The experimental result shows the possibility to harvest energy in the range of 5.92 and 234.47 microwatts at 10 RPM (0.167 Hz) and 100 RPM (1.667 Hz) in order.

This study explored the preparation and electrical properties of 0–3 barium titanate/polydimethylsiloxane nanocomposites by dispersing barium titanate nanoparticles (BaTiO₃; BT) into the polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) matrix phase. The effect of barium titanate nanoparticles on electrical properties has been investigated systematically, and the relative permittivity of nanocomposites was found to increase significantly with increasing barium titanate content. Different theoretical models were used to predict the dielectric constant of these composites and compare their experimental value with the theoretical value in order to find an appropriate equation. The result indicated that the dielectric properties of composites are influenced not only by relative permittivity of the components but also dependence on interactions between ceramics and polymers. Furthermore, the preparation and dielectric properties of BT/PDMS nanocomposites modified with carbon nanotube (CNT) were also studied. The dielectric results demonstrate that adding CNT can enhance the relative permittivity of the BT/PDMS composite via improvement of dispersion and distribution of the BT nanoparticles in the PDMS matrix phase. Moreover, the electrical outputs from the BT/PDMS/CNT nanocomposites generator were measured under periodic knocking. The nanocomposites innovatively expand the feasibility of self-powered energy systems for smart sensor and energy harvesting applications.