These power shoes generate electricity with every step

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There is nothing worse than being out and about, running some errands in the city when you get that dreaded pop-up on your phone. “Less than 20% battery”, is probably one of the scariest things you can have your phone say to you while you are far from home, aside from the subsequent warnings for 10% and 5% battery, respectively. There are a few solutions to this though. Maybe you were smart and brought your phone’s charging cord with you, but now the only issue is finding an outlet you can hover around while your phone recharges. Or you are extra prepared and brought along a portable battery pack, so you do not have to stick close to an outlet, but what if you forgot to charge the battery pack, or you would rather not want to lug around a hot brick in your pocket all day? Well, what if there was a way for you to generate usable electricity simply by walking? That is the idea behind the revolutionary “power shoes”.



The smart wearables revolution

It is no dream, or work of sci-fi anymore. There are now legitimate power shoes that generate energy merely by the act of walking or running! And not an insignificant amount either, enough to charge your phone or potentially even something heftier like a laptop. Researchers based in Germany have developed a system that allows for the effective harvesting of energy by utilizing the kinetic energy that is contained in our legs when we walk or run while wearing the power shoes.

The mind behind these power shoes is a man named Klevis Ylli who, as stated before, is based out of Germany. His design for the power shoes uses two harvesting systems that generate energy from different portions of a human’s walking cycle. The first makes use of magnets, allowing the swing of the foot to propel them through a collection of coils that then generate electricity. The concept behind this first harvester is quite simple, as it relies on one of the oldest discovered principles of magnets, their ability to influence electrical current. As a magnet moves around a coil of wires, usually copper ones, the magnetic field from the magnet pushes the electrons within the wire which in turn creates an electric charge. This charge can then be either stored in a battery or imparted directly into whatever device needs to be powered. The second harvester works in much the same way, using the force of the heel striking the group to cause a magnetic circuit contained within the power shoes to come into resonance, again generating electricity with the use of magnets and wires.

The conceived idea of the power shoes

After a long trial period, Ylli and his team were able to refine the design so that it consistently generates milliwatts of power while walking, and while this is not enough yet to power a smartphone, it is still an incredible development. The journal in which their findings and materials were first shown off in, Energy Harvesting for Wearable Sensor Systems, first talked about their work in the year 2015. Six years have passed since then, and it is likely that the design and usability of the power shoes has increased a fair amount. The article that was released in Energy Harvesting for Wearable Sensor Systems in fact has statements from the research team that confirms they are working to further refine the systems at play within the power shoes to allow for more efficient energy collection.

Power Shoes

Still, it might be some time before power shoes that can fully charge your phone after a quick stroll around the block become commercially available. The technology is there though, and it is rapidly developing towards a usable state. Other potential uses for the power shoe come in the form of aiding the elderly, as the researchers talk about wanting to use the electricity generated by the shoes to power themselves and be able to use that power to become self-tying shoes. This is especially helpful since many elderly folks have difficulties either bending over to tie their shoes, or their hands are too shaky/ache too much to be able to tie their shoes effectively.

Beyond our capacity of producing usable energy

Power shoes are not the only way that our body’s movement and energy can be harvested either. What about watches that work off the same principle as the first harvester in Ylli’s power shoes? Using the swing of our arms to generate power would greatly extend the battery life of any watch, smart or otherwise, especially when the harvesting process becomes even more efficient. Another widely used source of power generation is heat, and that is something that humans produce in large amounts simply by living. Being able to reclaim that lost heat would potentially allow for numerous other applications of self-charged electronics, allowing for a much more extensive use of products that would otherwise have a limited battery life.

The applications for human energy recycling are almost limitless, especially as the technology continues to be refined into a more practical form. Imagine a world where nothing ever runs out of power because people never stop moving. Your phone will never again need to remind you that its battery is getting low if your movements are constantly keeping it juiced up and fully charged. There are medical applications as well, such as with pacemakers or other battery powered devices such as automatic insulin pumps. There is a great worry that if someone with one of these devices becomes lost or trapped in an area such as an elevator, that their device’s battery may fail and lead to serious or fatal harm. Human energy generation would allow for their device to operate for a much longer period, giving rescue crews or search times more time to find/save potential victims.

Anyone who is fascinated by concepts of renewable energy and self-powered electronics should certainly give Ylli’s work in Energy Harvesting for Wearable Sensor Systems. It is an interesting read on its own, and if you are a technical sort yourself, it could even inspire you to make your own power shoes. The possibilities are endless.

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