A Multi-Source Harvesting System Applied to Sensor-Based Smart Garments for Monitoring Workers’ Bio-Physical Parameters in Harsh Environments

Roberto de Fazio, Donato Cafagna, Giorgio Marcuccio, Alessandro Minerba and Paolo Visconti
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Roberto de Fazio: Department of Innovation Engineering, University of Salento, 73100 Lecce, Italy
Donato Cafagna: Department of Innovation Engineering, University of Salento, 73100 Lecce, Italy
Giorgio Marcuccio: Department of Innovation Engineering, University of Salento, 73100 Lecce, Italy
Alessandro Minerba: Department of Innovation Engineering, University of Salento, 73100 Lecce, Italy
Paolo Visconti: Department of Innovation Engineering, University of Salento, 73100 Lecce, Italy

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 9, 1-33

Abstract: This paper describes the development and characterization of a smart garment for monitoring the environmental and biophysical parameters of the user wearing it; the wearable application is focused on the control to workers’ conditions in dangerous workplaces in order to prevent or reduce the consequences of accidents. The smart jacket includes flexible solar panels, thermoelectric generators and flexible piezoelectric harvesters to scavenge energy from the human body, thus ensuring the energy autonomy of the employed sensors and electronic boards. The hardware and firmware optimization allowed the correct interfacing of the heart rate and SpO 2 sensor, accelerometers, temperature and electrochemical gas sensors with a modified Arduino Pro mini board. The latter stores and processes the sensor data and, in the event of abnormal parameters, sends an alarm to a cloud database, allowing company managers to check them via a web app. The characterization of the harvesting subsection has shown that ≈ 265 mW maximum power can be obtained in a real scenario, whereas the power consumption due to the acquisition, processing and BLE data transmission functions determined that a 10 mAh/day charge is required to ensure the device’s proper operation. By charging a 380 mAh Lipo battery in a few hours by means of the harvesting system, an energy autonomy of 23 days was obtained, in the absence of any further energy contribution.

Keywords: wearable device; microcontroller; energy harvesting; piezoelectric harvester; thermo-electric generator; flexible solar panel (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: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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