“Information terminal for emergency using energy harvesting technology”

Introduction

Japan is the country where a lot of natural disaster such as earthquakes or typhoons exists every year. When the power failure take places because of the disaster, a lot of people might check out information on the disaster by first using their cellular phones. However, when the battery is low and other batteries are not stocked unfortunately, either it is difficult to understand present own situation. In order to overcome such problem, some researchers have been proposed a power generator that harvesting energy from the human motion like shaking, rotating, etc., for charging the phones.

Energy harvesting from human body and information terminal

The adult male obtains 2000 kcal from food in a day, and uses 75% among them for the basal metabolic rate. The rest of energy, 500 kcal, corresponds to 200 AA-size alkaline batteries. Therefore, if energy harvesting from the human motion can be changed into the electric power, it is possible to operate various devices. However, actually, a heavy exercise that pedals the bicycle for several hours is necessary to charge with the battery of the latest cellular phone full due to its variety of function. This means not only the power generator but also novel information terminal is indispensable for their purpose.

Here, I suggest the single-function device that displays information data received from digital broadcasting airwave. This device would consist of an e-paper, flash memories, tuner ICs, and a power generator. Since those electric components consumes only several hundreds of µW, the terminal could work with even small energy harvesting from body temperature or walking vibration. That is, it comes to obtain vital information easily only by wearing this terminal without regard to batteries.

Conclusion

The reliability of the cellular phone is low as the information terminal for the emergency due to battery problem. Because it is difficult to charge with the cellular phone with a manual dynamo, the development of new information device that consumes low power is necessary. My idea is the mobile device, which consists of low-power consumption components, can be worked with small energy harvesting from body temperature or waking vibration. The terminal works might be useful because important information could be obtained without the battery like crystal radio anytime and anywhere.