POWER GENERATION FROM FOOTSTEPS

By Anjali Salimkumar

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ABSTRACT

This seminar is all about generating electricity when people walk on the Floor. Think about the forces you exert which is wasted when a person walks. The idea is to convert this force to electrical energy. The Power Generating floor intends to translate the kinetic energy to the electrical power.  Energy Crisis is the main issue of world these days. 

The motto of this research work is to face this crisis somehow. Though it won’t meet the requirement of electricity but as a matter of fact if we are able to design a power generating floor that can produce 100W on just 12 steps, then for 120 steps we can produce 1000 Watt and if we install such type of 100 floors with this system then it can produce 1MegaWatt. Which itself is an achievement to make it significant

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Energy is very important in today's world. For example, we use different energy sources to generate the electricity we need for our homes, schools, businesses and factories. Electricity powers our TVs, computers, air conditioners, cell phones and washing machines - just to mention a few. We also use energy to run cars, planes, trains, buses and motorcycles.Energy harvesting also known as power  harvesting or energy scavenging is the process by which energy is derived from external sources e.g. solar power, thermal energy, wind energy, salinity gradients ,and kinetic energy, captured, and stored for small, wireless autonomous devices, like those used in wearable electronics and wireless sensor networks. Energy harvesters provide a very small amount of power for low energy electronics. While the input fuel to some largescale generation costs money (oil, coal, etc.), the energy source for energy harvesters is present as ambient background and is free. For example, temperature gradients exist from the operation of a combustion engine and in urban areas, there is a large amount of electromagnetic energy in the environment because of radio and television broadcasting.

Walking is the most common activity in day to day life. When a person walks, he loses energy to the road surface in the form of impact, vibration, sound etc, due to the transfer of his weight on to the road surface, through foot falls on the ground during every step. This energy can be tapped and converted in the usable form such as in electrical form

With that in mind investments are being made in the popular green energy sectors such as wind, solar, and wave energy. However, people’s steps (thousands upon thousands a day) utilize and channel kinetic energy too.

1.1 Objective

The objective of this study is to find the feasibility of power generation from footsteps.

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