Wearable knee power generator

Wearable power is a hot research item which got high profile sponsorship last year with the Wearable Power Price from the Department of Defense.

The Electricity generating knee brace from a team of researchers of the University of Michigan has demonstrated one concept of how to harvest the power humans produce during physical activities as simple as walking or running.

Philips developed a concept that look more elegant and is based on a very simple principle to harvest some of the walking power: the Knee mounted power generator.

The knee mounted power generator is basically a knee harness that converts rotary movement of a mechanical gear box with fly-wheel, very similar to the watches that crank up themselves, into electrical energy that can be stored in a battery for later use.

I like the simplicity and the elegance of this concept idea. Running around for hours and days in the wilderness, the power of our gadgets like cell-phones, walkie-talkies, GPS and so forth can easily run out.

Using solar bags is one option but if the sun is hiding, a knee power generator like this would have a great value as the only other alternative in the outdoors is to carry along spare batteries.

[via: ecofriend]

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