Professional Documents
Culture Documents
SHOE-MOUNTED PIEZOELECTRICS
DECREASING SIZE AND POWER REQUIREMENTS OF WEARABLE
MICROELECTRONICS MAKE IT POSSIBLE TO REPLACE BATTERIES WITH
Consumer reliance on wearable elec- (RFID) tags, and emergency beacons or loca-
tronic devices has grown significantly in the past tors. If wiring devices to the generator proves
decade. With increasing use come demands for impractical for some applications, a battery
decreased size and enhanced capabilities, neces- could be trickle-charged at the shoe and man-
sitating new ways to supply electric energy to ually moved into the devices.
these devices. Until now, chemical-cell batteries Studies at the MIT Media Laboratory have
have been sufficient, but replacing them is a explored the feasibility of harnessing waste
costly nuisance, and this solution will become energy from a variety of body sources. Thad
less practical as demands evolve. Another Starner’s benchmark conceptual investigation
Nathan S. Shenck approach is a centralized, body-worn power in 1995 analyzed various human activities and
pack, with multiple distribution lines, but such found that the heel strike during walking is
Joseph A. Paradiso a system will be cumbersome and impractical the most plentiful and readily tapped source
as the user wears more devices. of waste energy.1 Starner estimated that 67
MIT Media Laboratory, Fortunately, as power requirements drop for watts of power are available in the heel move-
body-worn devices, a third approach, which ment of an average (68 kg) person walking at
Responsive Environments eliminates the power wiring problem, is emerg- a brisk pace (two steps per second with the
ing: developing and storing electric energy at foot moving 5 cm vertically). Admittedly,
Group the devices themselves by scavenging waste scavenging most of that energy unobtrusive-
energy from human activities. For example, ly would be impossible. But even a small per-
the average person spends a significant part of centage of it (up to a sizable fraction of a
the day on foot, dissipating abundant energy watt),2 removed imperceptibly, would provide
into the insole of a shoe. Harnessed unobtru- enough power to operate many of the body-
sively, this wasted energy could be used in a worn systems on the market today.
variety of low-power applications, such as A second MIT Media Lab study3 and inde-
pagers, health monitors, self-powered emer- pendent work at other institutions (for exam-
gency receivers, radio frequency identification ple, Antaki et al.4) supported this conclusion
MAY–JUNE 2001 31
Shoe-Mounted Piezoelectrics
32 IEEE MICRO
different curvature radii. The
PVDF sheets on either side of 60
the core are connected appro- |V| =
9.8 V
priately so the silver elec-
trodes on each sheet appear in 40
parallel (flipping polarity on
Volts (mW)
opposite sides as in Figure 1b) 20
and the discrete charge accu-
mulations of the 16 layers are
additive. A voltage therefore 0
<P> = 1.3 mW
develops across the two leads, 10
supported by the multilami-
0
nate structure’s net 330-nF 0 1 2 3 4 5
(a) Time (s)
capacitance. Restoring the
stave’s shape, as well as bend- 200
ing it, liberates energy if the |V| = 44 V
resulting charge is optimally 150
removed at each relative min-
imum and maximum deflec- 100
Volts (mW)
MAY–JUNE 2001 33
Shoe-Mounted Piezoelectrics
34 IEEE MICRO
R7 100K
PVDF, PZT 500 mA C3
R5
1.8 Me g
0.1 µF
510K R3 LBout
C1 voltage
8 2
Vin Vout
C1 Q1 10K
0.1 µF
6 1
22-47 µF
2N3906 Vset Sense
C2
D2
12 V 5
D1 Shtdn
R2 4 Gnd 3
LBin
750K
750K
R4
1 Meg
R6
MAX 666
Q2
VN2222L
Transmit antenna
JP 0-7 U2
1 NC 20
NC
2 A0 19 Data test
Vdd
3 A1 18
C4 Dout Antenna
4 17 R8
1.5 Me g
A2 Osc1 +5 V in
HT12E/S
encoder
5 A3 16
Osc2 TX-66
2 µF 6 A4 15
TE 310 MHz
7 A5 14
AD11 JP8
8 13 Data in
A6 AD10 JP9
8 12 GND
A7 AD9 JP10
10 GND 11 U3
AD8 JP11
Figure 6. Schematic of power-conditioning electronics and encoder circuitry for the shoe-powered RF tag system.
mately 4.5 V (as set by R5 and R6), the low- storage capacitor
battery in pin (LBin on U1) is pulled below its 12 (C1 = 47µF)
threshold, driving the low-battery out pin
10
(LBout) to ground momentarily. This negative
pulse through C3 turns Q1 Off, thus deacti-
8
vating Q2 and renewing the C1 charging cycle.
Note that R1, R2, and R3 bias Q1 and Q2 to 6 Transmitting Transmitting Transmitting
show C1 a very high load impedance when the
Q1-Q2 latch is deactivated. Finally, we includ- 4
ed R4 and C2 to better match the load stage to Regulated
5-V supply
the charging circuit and source impedance; the 2 output
remaining resistors support the load stage com-
ponents in other ways. 0
0 2 4 6 8 10
Figure 7 is a representative graph of signals
Time (s)
from the power-conditioning circuitry with
the PZT source during a walk. The upper trace Figure 7. Stored voltage (top) and regulated power output (bottom) waveforms
shows the voltage across C1 (in this case, 47 for shoe-powered RFID transmitter while walking.
µF), and the lower trace shows the MAX666
linear regulator’s output. Charge accumulates
on the bucket capacitor, increasing with each ond, generally after three to five steps with the
step until the capacitor stores enough energy to current system. Substituting a high-frequency
power the transmitter for roughly half a sec- switching regulator for the MAX666 would
MAY–JUNE 2001 35
Shoe-Mounted Piezoelectrics
further improve the efficiency of this circuit; Techniques for synchronously interrupting a
this line of inquiry led to the results summa- resonant circuit have recently been proposed—
rized in the following section. for instance, allowing the ringing voltage on
the source capacitance to swing up (or down)
Exploring high-frequency after the piezoelectric voltage has peaked (or
switching conversion reached a minimum).10 The resonant frequen-
Despite its novelty, simplicity, and low qui- cy is then made independent of the excitation
escent power requirement, the shoe-powered period. Although this allows a resonance fre-
RF tag system is inherently inefficient. Low- quency much higher than the 1-Hz walk, any
frequency piezoelectric sources are essentially significant energy storage advantage could still
purely capacitive, and during walking they require an impractically large inductor.
produce high-voltage, low-energy, low-duty- Switching converters are the natural alter-
cycle current pulses at approximately one cycle native to resonant shunting because they offer
per second. This excitation profile results in two distinct advantages over linear systems.
an extremely high source impedance, with First, because they are truly power converters
voltage signals in the hundreds of volts and and not voltage regulators, switching convert-
currents on the order of 10-7 A. A linear reg- ers are much more efficient when the differ-
ulation scheme, therefore, is not well suited ence between input and output voltages is large.
to the electrical characteristics of a piezoelec- Second, they function as impedance converters
tric element excited by a brisk walk. For that because the average dc output current can be
reason, we devoted our subsequent research larger than the average dc input current. Fur-
to finding a more efficient means of convert- ther, we selected the forward-converter topol-
ing the raw electric energy produced by the ogy because the step-down transformation
transducers into a useful form. We explored shows a high reflected impedance to the piezo-
various switching conversion schemes, includ- electric source when the switch is closed. It also
ing switched-capacitor converters and direct reduces switch stresses when the difference
dc-dc down converters. In the end, we devel- between input and output voltages is large and
oped an offline, forward-switching converter, allows the simplest gate drive circuitry.
consisting of a small number of inexpensive, The piezoelectric power system presented
readily available components and materials. here has much different characteristics and
A suitable low-frequency circuit model boundary conditions from those in normal
equivalent to a piezoelectric source consists switching-converter applications. Therefore,
of a capacitor in parallel with a resistor to using commercially available control ICs was
model the dielectric leakage, and a charge inappropriate, and much of the theory and
source dependent on mechanical displace- practice common to switcher implementation
ment to model the energy transduction. didn’t apply. Specifically, the following points
Because excitation occurs at such a low fre- had particular weight in our converter topol-
quency and because the circuit should pro- ogy selection and design:
vide a stable, low-ripple output voltage, the
power-conditioning system must perform • A low-frequency piezoelectric source is
low-pass filtering with an extremely low cor- essentially a capacitor and a parallel charge
ner frequency. For that goal, the most efficient source, and Ec = (1/2)CV2 describes the
approach would be to discharge the source energy stored on a capacitor. Therefore,
through a diode and a matched inductor into it is advantageous to allow the source volt-
the bucket capacitor, ringing the circuit with age to peak before removing the energy.
each step. This technique is often used in ac • The charge liberated per cycle is relative-
charging circuits for capacitors in flash pho- ly constant under the same peak loading
tography systems. At an average 1-Hz walk- force, regardless of frequency.
ing pace and a 140-nF source capacitance, • Output ripple is dominated by the low
however, resonant shunting requires an induc- excitation frequency of walking. There-
tance on the order of 105 H. Certainly, such fore, a large output capacitance (greater
a value is not practical, especially if the device than 100 µF) is necessary to keep volt-
is to fit in a shoe. age ripple within acceptable limits.
36 IEEE MICRO
Df1 Mf1 Mf2
Df1 Cff
T1 V+
R2
D5 L1
P S
Ds1 Cb Q1
Ra V+ R Ms
R1 A+ V+ Ao A+
A- D Vdd Q T Zb Z2
D1 D4 MAX934a D Vdd Q Rb ICM7555 U2A Ds2
R4
Rc1 U2B OUT R D5
Dp2 B+ Bo Q TH ck
ck
q(t) B- V- TR S Vss Q L2 R3
S Vss Q
Dp1 REF GND GND VC Ds
Rc2 C1 LGND
PZT Mg
dimorph C2 Rr1 Rr2 Ct Cvc
source
D3 D4 LGND
SGND
V+
R5 Vin SENSE
V+ Do R′
D+ LBO Vout +
U1B Q
D- MAX666
MAX934b
R6 C+ LBI R6
Vout
C- Co U1C SHDN Vset
REF GND S GND
R7 R7
–
LGND
• Duty-cycle control is not an issue—we connects to SGND and its drain to LGND.
implemented switching simply to pro- Because bucket capacitor Cb is sufficiently
vide current gain. discharged and Z2 is not conducting at start-
• The average source current is very small up, resistor R3 pulls Mg’s gate to SGND. This
(approximately 100 nA), so we selected configuration assures that SGND and LGND
semiconductor switches to minimize do not reference each other at startup and do
gate charge, not the drain-to-source On not do so until Q1 goes into conduction. This
resistance. latching circuit is identical to the one in Fig-
• We chose the switching frequency to ure 6; we recycled it here for bootstrapping.
minimize system energy loss, specifically The source signal is full-wave rectified by a
in the transformer, switch control, and diode bridge (D1 to D4). Because LGND is
gate drive. not referenced to the source and Q1 is Off at
• The control circuitry must bootstrap startup, the only current path available to the
itself from a cold startup; no battery is rectified source signal is through the feed-for-
included to start the switching regulator. ward loop and into Cb. Diodes Df1, D5, D6,
Ds1, and Ds2 prevent Cb from discharging
Forward-switching converter design back through transformer T1 as it charges. To
and operation ensure Mf1 is On at startup, we placed Df2 and
Figure 8 shows a block diagram of our for- Cff in series on a second feed-forward branch
ward-switching power-conditioning system. to couple charge onto its gate. Further, Mf2’s
Note that this system has two ground buses— gate shares the same node as Mg’s gate (that is,
one referenced to the PZT source, the second they share the same conduction state), so Mf2
to the load. We refer to these ground refer- is Off at startup and charge accumulates on
ences as source ground (SGND) and load Mf1, holding it On. Note that both Mf1 and
ground (LGND). Mg, an n-channel MOS- Mf2 must be low-leakage, high-standoff-
FET (metal-oxide semiconductor field-effect voltage devices. It is desirable to minimize
transistor), joins the two buses; Mg’s source source charge leakage through Mf1 after the
MAY–JUNE 2001 37
Shoe-Mounted Piezoelectrics
switcher is operating, and a leaky Mf2 would U2B, the flip-flop latches Q high, thereby
strip charge off the Mf1 gate during startup. supplying power to the biasing circuitry of the
As Cb charges beyond Z2’s breakdown volt- ICM7555 CMOS oscillator. In using the Q
age plus the diode drop across the Q1 base- pin to source this current, we reduce quies-
emitter junction, Q1 is forced into cent losses in the biasing resistors by supply-
conduction, which in turn activates Mf2 and ing power only when the oscillator is needed.
Mg. With Mf2 On, Mf1’s gate is pulled to The oscillator will function as long as Q is
ground and current flow through the feed-for- High and the biasing circuitry is powered. It
ward loop is blocked in both directions. Most will remain High until the input signal falls
high-standoff-voltage MOSFETs have a body below the threshold set at A+ and Reset is dri-
diode connected from source to drain, so we ven High. Further, feeding Ao into Reset pre-
included Df1 to prevent reverse current flow vents the oscillator from being turned On
through Mf1. Further, in the On state, Mg until the input signal reaches the A+ thresh-
references LGND to SGND, which will then old, regardless of the source signal. This con-
differ only by the voltage drop across the chan- vention prevents small signals, such as the
nel. Cb now has a current path through the ones produced by weight shifts on the insole,
conditioning circuitry and into the common from inadvertently activating the switcher.
ground, and the system is activated. LGND Rc1, Rc2, and C1 bias and filter the signal
remains a viable current-return path until the into the B−/B+ peak detector. We selected
voltage across R3 goes low enough to pinch these values experimentally, and the circuit
off Mg. Adjusting the ratio between R2 and behaves somewhat erratically without them.
R3 can set the Cb voltage at which this occurs. The forward-converter switcher conven-
Once the control and regulation circuitry is tionally operates at or near a 50 percent duty
activated and the direct current path from the cycle to minimize switch stress and core loss-
source to the secondary side opens, the only es (this regulator circuit8 achieves optimal per-
means to transfer energy from the source into formance at a 25-kHz switching frequency).
Cb is through the transformer and the MOS- However, biasing-circuitry losses approach a
FET switch. A peak detector (Dp1, Dp2, C1, maximum as the duty cycle goes to 50 per-
and C2) and comparators A and B in the cent using the 7555 timer in this standard
MAX934 IC perform zero-slope peak detec- astable configuration. Simply, the Rb/Ra ratio
tion of the source signal. The switcher is acti- should be made as small as practical to mini-
vated when the signal reaches its maximum mize losses, but it is impossible to reduce this
voltage and deactivated when a low signal is ratio and approach a 50 percent duty cycle
detected. Further, Ms is held open at startup so simultaneously. To address this quandary, we
that the transformer will not load the source. used a second D flip-flop to establish a per-
R1, Rc1, and Rc2 constitute a very high resis- fect 50 percent duty-cycle square wave and
tance voltage divider (R1 is approximately 100 drive the gate of the n-channel MOSFET
MΩ), and Rr1 and Rr2 divide the reference switch Ms. We could then minimize the
voltage (1.182 V) so that the input voltage at Rb/Ra ratio and use the 7555 to supply
pin A− is limited as the source voltage momentary trigger pulses to the flip-flop.
approaches 300 V. Ao therefore remains High Therefore, at the peak of every current pulse
until the source signal voltage reaches the pre- from the dimorph source, the gate drive cir-
set level and A− becomes greater than A+; the cuit switches an exponentially decaying source
Reset pin on FF2 is then set Low. As the input envelope through the step-down transformer
signal continues to rise, the voltage drop across T1 and into the storage stage. The T1 primary
Dp2 holds B− higher than B+, thereby keep- is coupled into two windings with the same
ing Bo Low as C2 charges. turn ratio, N. S is the secondary winding, and
When the slope of the source signal reach- tertiary winding T is inverted with respect to
es zero and begins to fall, the voltage across SGND. We use T to reset the magnetic flux
C2 is greater than the signal voltage, and the through the transformer core during switch
voltage drop across Dp1 causes the compara- Off periods, transferring the magnetization
tor to drive the Bo pin High. With Reset Low energy into Cb.
and a positive slope edge at the clock input of Following D5 and D6 are filter inductors
38 IEEE MICRO
and freewheeling diodes for both low-side 6
windings. L1 (and L2 on the tertiary) and Cb 5 VC
b
form a second-order filter, normally imple-
4 1.3-mW load
mented to reduce the high-frequency ripple at
Volts
the output. In this design, the filter must con- 3 Vout
tend with the source’s dominant 1-Hz excita- 2
tion frequency. The inductors therefore operate (0.01)
1 x
discontinuously and do little to filter the dom- Vsource
inant ripple. We included them merely to sup- 0
0 1 2 3 4 5
port the voltage difference between Cb and the Time (s)
transformed source when the switch is closed. (a)
The bucket capacitor is large enough to sustain 5
an operable voltage between each current pulse 2.0-mW load
(as shown in Figure 9a), and Zb protects the 4 VC
b
control circuitry if the voltage on Cb approach-
es the supply rating of the CMOS logic. Volts 3
The final stage is for load switching. In this
2
stage, two comparators and a NAND Set/Reset
Vout
latch sense V+ and provide hysteresis in the 1
LDO linear regulator’s On/Off control. This
combination provides a regulated output volt- 0
0 1 2 3 4 5
age, prevents Cb from draining completely, and Time (s)
thereby reduces the number of slow boot-
strapped restarts. Hysteresis is important (b)
because it prevents jitter or oscillation in load Figure 9. Switching converter signals for a continuous 1.3-mW
stage control and allows low-duty-cycle opera- load (a) and a 2.0-mW load (b), showing low-voltage shut-
tion, as shown in Figure 9b, if a load demands down. Both examples resulted from walking with the PZT
higher power than the system provides. dimorph source, represented in the bottom plot of (a).
Compared with the simple scheme of Fig-
ure 6, the switching converter proved a bet-
ter means of conditioning power harvested er examination. The switching converter incurs
from piezoelectric sources, although its effi- losses in the transformer core and switching
ciency was not as high as we anticipated. Fig- MOSFET. We could reduce these losses by
ure 9a shows that the forward converter can using components tailored to micropower sig-
supply at least 1.3 mW continuously at a nals. Finally, applying soft-switching techniques
walking pace of 0.8 Hz. Comparing this with and developing an optimal circuit layout would
the dimorph source’s raw power (8.4 mW at further reduce electrical system overhead.
1.1 Hz) and normalizing with respect to a Without straying from the relative sim-
common frequency, we found that the con- plicity of low-frequency passive excitation, the
verter’s electrical efficiency is 17.6 percent. logical next steps for the piezoelectric shoe
This result is better than twice the original lin- power system are refining the transformer and
ear regulator’s efficiency using the same source FET switch designs and developing an inte-
and bucket capacitor.7 More important, the grated circuit to perform control. Commer-
switching-converter system provides electric cially available high-voltage FETs are built for
power continuously during walking, a high-current applications. They have rela-
requirement of many potential applications. tively high gate charge requirements, and the
gate drive dissipates a large portion of a piezo-
Related work and future developments electric source’s power even at low frequen-
Research is necessary in a few areas to cies. The most important enhancement
enhance the efficiency and output of the two therefore is to optimize the switching transis-
shoe-power-harvesting systems presented here. tor for high voltages but very small currents.
For better performance from the switching reg- Further, placing the control on an IC would
ulator, several electrical design factors need clos- reduce losses associated with coupling multi-
MAY–JUNE 2001 39
Shoe-Mounted Piezoelectrics
40 IEEE MICRO
A fter improving the shoe-generator
designs, we must integrate them with
useful body-worn systems. The RFID trans-
er Laboratory in Cambridge, Mass., for the
opportunity to study at MIT as a Draper Fel-
low while conducting research at CSDL and
mitter is one example of a simple and practi- the MIT Media Lab. He acknowledges the US
cal application of scavenged shoe power. Navy for granting him a two-year leave of ser-
However, at such low power levels, embedded vice to pursue graduate education. He also
batteries might be a viable (but environmen- thanks John Sweeney, Richard Gardener, and
tally unfriendly) alternative, depending on the Paul Rosenstrach for guidance and support at
frequency of use and product lifetime. Other CSDL.
possibilities include a personal positioning sys-
tem for military or police units, a personal References
navigator or smart pedometer, a data collec- 1. T. Starner, “Human Powered Wearable
tion tool for monitoring an athlete’s move- Computing,” IBM Systems J., vol. 35, nos.
ments, and a child-tracking device. There are 3 and 4, 1996, pp. 618-629.
countless other potential applications. 2. J.P. Marsden and S.R. Montgomery, “Plan-
As the power yield increases and wearable elec- tar Power for Arm Prosthesis Using Body
tronics become more efficient, foot-powered Weight Transfer,” Human Locomotor Engi-
energy-harvesting systems can drive more com- neering, Inst. Mechanical Engineers Press,
ponents of wearable computers, eliminating the London, 1971, pp. 277-282.
need for batteries or enabling them to be charged 3. R. Fletcher, “Force Transduction Materials for
“on the hoof.” These systems would open a host Human-Technology Interface,” IBM Systems
of applications in situations where power grid J., vol. 35, nos. 3 and 4, 1996, pp. 630-638.
access is often unavailable, such as extended hik- 4. J.F. Antaki et al., “A Gait Powered Autolo-
ing expeditions or military missions. gous Battery Charging System for Artificial
As applications increase, so should ease of Organs,” Proc. 1995 American Society of
use. The piezoelectric insole and conditioning Artificial Internal Organs Conf., Lippincott
electronics could be marketed as separate com- Williams & Wilkins, Philadelphia, 1995,
ponents to be modularly linked to electronics pp. M588-M595.
embedded in the heel via a weatherproof con- 5. “Piezoelectric Tutorial,” Piezo Systems, Cam-
nector. As insoles wore out, consumers would bridge, Mass.; http://www.piezo.com/
replace or upgrade them. With appropriate intro.html.
adaptations, shoe-mounted energy-scaveng- 6. C.J. Kendall, Parasitic Power Collection in
ing systems are likely to power a wide range of Shoe-Mounted Devices, BS thesis, Dept. of
body-worn devices. MICRO Physics and MIT Media Laboratory, Massa-
chusetts Institute of Technology, Cam-
Acknowledgments bridge, Mass., June 1998.
We are grateful to our MIT Media Lab col- 7. J. Kymissis et al., “Parasitic Power Harvest-
laborators Jake Kendall, John Kymissis, and Neil ing in Shoes,” Second IEEE Int’l Conf. Wear-
Gershenfeld of the Physics and Media Group. able Computing, IEEE CS Press, Los
We also thank our associates in the Media Lab’s Alamitos, Calif., 1998, pp. 132-139.
sponsor community, in particular Kyung Park 8. N. Shenck, A Demonstration of Useful Elec-
and Minoru Toda at the Sensor Products Divi- tric Energy Generation from Piezoceramics
sion of Measurement Specialties (formerly AMP in a Shoe, MS thesis, Dept. of Electrical Engi-
Sensors) for working with us on the design of neering and Computer Science, Massachu-
the PVDF stave and providing the foil. We setts Institute of Technology, Cambridge,
acknowledge helpful and interesting discussions Mass., 1999.
with many other research colleagues, especially 9. R. Want et al., “The Active Badge Location
Robert Nowak of the Defense Advanced System,” ACM Trans. Information Systems,
Research Projects Agency and Nesbit Hagood vol. 10, no. 1, Jan. 1992, pp. 91-102.
of MIT. We appreciate the support of the 10. P. Smalser, Power Transfer of Piezoelectric
Things That Think Consortium and our other Generated Energy, US patent 5703474,
sponsors at the MIT Media Laboratory. Patent and Trademark Office, Washington,
Nathan Shenck is grateful to the C.S. Drap- D.C., 1997.
MAY–JUNE 2001 41
Shoe-Mounted Piezoelectrics
42 IEEE MICRO