R. Tashiro et al., Development of an electrostatic generator that harnesses the motion of a living body (use of a resonant phenomenon), JSME C, 43(4), 2000, pp. 916-922
Citations number
8
Categorie Soggetti
Mechanical Engineering
Journal title
JSME INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL SERIES C-MECHANICAL SYSTEMS MACHINE ELEMENTS AND MANUFACTURING
We aimed for permanently supplying the electrical energy to an apparatus fo
r in vivo use such as a cardiac pacemaker and proposed and developed an ele
ctrostatic (ES) generator that harnesses the motion of the living body. The
generating system consists of a battery as an initial charge supply (ICS),
a variable capacitor (VC) in which mechanical energy is converted to elect
rical energy, a capacitor for energy storage and two rectifiers. In this st
udy, an ES generator which does not consume electrical energy of the ICS wa
s used. Since high frequency driving of the VC leads to large power generat
ion, it is effective to introduce a resonant phenomenon. A honeycomb-type v
ariable capacitor whose capacitance varies from approximately 32 to 200 [nF
] was used as the VC. The resonator (resonant frequency 4.76 [Hz]) which co
nsists of a honeycomb-type VC, tension coil springs and mass was made. It w
as possible to generate electrical power of 58 [muW] in case of the ICS wit
h constant voltage of 24 [V] and a load with resistance of 1.0 [M Omega]. W
e found that use of resonant phenomenon was effective to increase generated
power.