CUHK researchers develop new energy harvester

News

Researchers at Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) have developed a new energy harvester designed to break through limitations of battery life in smart watches and other wrist-worn wearables.

Led by Professor Wei-Hsin Liao, chairman of the Department of Mechanical and Automation Engineering (MAE) at CUHK, the team has proposed a ‘highly compact’ embedded generator equipped with a motion capture unit, a magnetic frequency-up converter and a power generation unit, complete with coaxial topology. Although the total volume of the harvester is 5cm3, researchers claim it can achieve 1.74mW power output.

Knee-powered energy-harvester keeps devices running

The energy harvesting system has been designed to easily embed into smart watches and other wrist-worn wearables to provide a sustainable power supply. Functions such as health monitoring, contactless payment, entertainment and living assistance are making smart watches and wearables more popular but limited battery life remains an issue.

Energy harvesters have been used to power up traditional watches in which mechanical gears are equipped to increase the frequency of human motion and convert mechanical energy to electricity, but these designs require precision manufacture, and the mechanical friction caused by gears leads to significant energy loss with devices occasionally suffering mechanical failure.

Register now to continue reading

Thanks for visiting The Engineer. You’ve now reached your monthly limit of news stories. Register for free to unlock unlimited access to all of our news coverage, as well as premium content including opinion, in-depth features and special reports.  

Benefits of registering

  • In-depth insights and coverage of key emerging trends

  • Unrestricted access to special reports throughout the year

  • Daily technology news delivered straight to your inbox

Register
Or continue by

Signing in with your registered email address