Permanent magnet energy harvesting pedal based on compliant lever and energy storage structure

• Main Authors: Yi-He Zhang, Chul-Hee Lee
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: SAGE Publishing 2020-10-01
• Series: Advances in Mechanical Engineering
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1177/1687814020963858

The rapid development of low-power electronic sensors and integrated circuits has made the energy supply module complex and costly to a greater extent. The traditional energy supply method is based on external wiring or built-in batteries, which gives rise to a series of problems such as high costs of installation and maintenance, and environmental pollution. Mini-type energy generators absorb the ambient energy to power wireless devices, which is a promising energy supplying method. This method has the advantage of low installation cost and battery-free maintenance. This study proposed a digital design of a Step-type electromagnetic energy harvesting device. Two design goals should be considered to make the energy generator work well. First, the pedal can drive the energy generator to generate electricity during the stepping and rebounding process. Second, the pedal should have a small pedaling displacement, so as not to affect the normal walking state of pedestrians. To achieve the above goals, this research designed a compliant lever structure with elastic energy storage function and displacement amplification function. The pseudo-rigid body model is used to conceptually design the flexible mechanism. The electromagnetic force of the iron core at different positions is calculated by simulation analysis and verified by experiments. Based on these results, this device can be used effectively as a monitoring system host node at the doorways of hospital wards.