New Wearable Technologies and Devices to Efficiently Scavenge Energy from the Human Body: State of the Art and Future Trends

Roberto De Fazio, Roberta Proto, Carolina Del-Valle-Soto, Ramiro Velázquez and Paolo Visconti ()
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Roberto De Fazio: Department of Innovation Engineering, University of Salento, 73100 Lecce, Italy
Roberta Proto: Department of Innovation Engineering, University of Salento, 73100 Lecce, Italy
Carolina Del-Valle-Soto: Facultad de Ingeniería, Universidad Panamericana, Álvaro del Portillo 49, Zapopan 45010, Jalisco, Mexico
Ramiro Velázquez: Facultad de Ingeniería, Universidad Panamericana, Aguascalientes 20290, Mexico
Paolo Visconti: Department of Innovation Engineering, University of Salento, 73100 Lecce, Italy

Energies, 2022, vol. 15, issue 18, 1-37

Abstract: Wearable technology represents a new technological paradigm for promoting physical activity, enabling monitoring of performances and athletic gestures. In addition, they can be employed for remote health monitoring applications, allowing continuous acquisition of users’ vital signs directly at home, emergency alerting, and computer-assisted rehabilitation. Commonly, these devices depend on batteries which are not the better option since researchers aim for dispositive who need minimal human intervention. Energy harvesting devices can be useful to extract energy from the human body, especially by integrating them into the garments, giving health monitoring devices enough energy for their independent operation. This review work focuses on the main new wearable technologies and devices to scavenge energy from the human body. First, the most suitable energy sources exploitable for wearable applications are investigated. Afterward, an overview of the main harvesting technologies (piezoelectric, triboelectric, thermoelectric, solar fabrics, and hybrid solution) is presented. In detail, we focused on flexible and thin textiles with energy harvesting capability, allowing easy integration into clothes fabric. Furthermore, comparative analyses of each harvesting technology are proposed, providing useful insights related to the best technologies for developing future self-sustainable wearable devices. Finally, a comparison between our review work and similar ones is introduced, highlighting its strengths in completeness and specificity.

Keywords: energy harvesting; solar fabric; thermoelectric generators; piezoelectric; triboelectric; hybrid energy harvesting systems (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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