Introduction and Background

Whenever a person walks, he/she loses energy towards the floor by means of influence and
vibration as a result of the movement of excess weight to the floor. That energy may be used and
converted into electrical energy. Now a days electric power is needed in almost every aspect of
our life from home to workplace and for almost every tool we used from personal computer to
mobile phone. So power cut is the big problem in our day to day life. The ultimate aim of this
project is to develop much cleaner cost effective way of power generation method, which in
turns helps as an alternative power source during power cut. As mentioned above, power cut is a huge

problem in our day to day life that must be solved. So there is a need of alternative power source
in case it happens. Instead of looking for new ways to generate energy, we will be focusing on
harvesting energy from everyday activities that would otherwise be lost. A person exerts lots of
force when they walk down the stairs. The power harvesting system we proposed intends to turn
this energy into electrical power using a piezo-electric generator.
Energy conversion principle taught us it is possible to change one form of energy to another. In
our case we are focused on mechanical to electrical energy conversion.

Problem Statement
Our country has several hours of daily power-cuts in almost all cities and villages because the
increase in demand for electricity exceeds the increase in electric power generation.
People in these places may use a power-inverter (rechargeable batteries) or a diesel/petrol-run
electric generator at their homes during the power-cut. But it is not affordable to everyone.

Motivation
Man has needed and used energy at an increasing rate for his sustenance and well-being ever since he
came on the earth a few million years ago. Primitive man required energy primarily in the form of
food. He derived this by eating plants or animals, which he hunted. With the passage of time, man
started to cultivate land for agriculture. He added a new dimension to the use of energy by
domesticating and training animals to work for him. With further demand for energy, man began to
use the wind for sailing ships and for driving windmills, and the force of falling water to turn water
for sailing ships and for driving windmills, and the force of falling water to turn water wheels. Till
this time, it would not be wrong to say that the sun was supplying all the energy needs of man either
directly or indirectly and that man was using only renewable sources of energy.

Objective
We plan to get an alternative power source for power cut problem from the everyday motion of people
traveling up and down a staircase. Whenever force is applied on piezoelectric sensor, the force will be
converted to electrical energy. From there, the energy will be stored in a battery for future use. Our main
goal is to harvest as much energy as possible, without compromising the reliability and safety of tradition
stairs.

Here are some questions that may rise in someones mind about our project:

Is the system feasible?

Is the system affordable?
Is the system environmentally friendly?
Is the system effective?
Is the system sustainable?

As mentioned above the system is simply mechanical to electrical energy conversion which is
practicable.
Compared to petrol-run generators, our system is easily affordable.
The system is also environmentally friendly since its source is energy from human foot step and
has no harmful wastes which will pollute our environment. In addition it isnt sound pollutant.
The system is as effective as the place where it installed is crowded.
The sustainability depends on the strength of the Piezo-electric material.
In the case of power cut, the installed system we proposed serve as an alternative power source.
Among the main issues we have to address in our proposed system for alternative power source,
sustainability has a little impact.

Methodology
3

Whenever force is applied on piezoelectric sensor, it is converted into electrical energy. In that moment
the output voltage from the sensor is stored in the battery. Then the output voltage from the battery, which
is in the form of DC, is converted to AC by using an invertor. So this inverted output derives loads. Here
we are using microcontroller to display the battery level. The generated voltage from a piezoelectric

material can be calculated from the following equation.

V = Sv * P * D
Where V = Piezoelectric generated voltage (Volts)
Sv = Voltage sensitivity of the material (Volt *meters /Newton)
P = Pressure (N/m2)
D = thickness of material (meters)
In the experiments we will show the conversion of mechanical to electrical energy, store the generated
electrical energy by using rechargeable battery and convert this energy from DC to AC form. This
experiment is designed to answer the questions such as:

How to generate electrical energy from mechanical energy source.

How to store the generated DC power and
How to convert DC to AC.

The data that we will collect is the voltage sensitivity values for different weights for comparison with the
theoretical values provided by the manufacturer.

Block diagram
Protector
sheet made
from soft core

Power
supply unit

Contra
st

Piezo

electric
senser

A/C ripple
neutralizer

MICROCON
TROLLER

LCD

Unidirectional
current controller
Voltage
sampler
Chargeable
battery

ADC

Inverter

Load/lig
ht

Piezoelectric Sensor

A piezoelectric sensor is a device that uses the piezoelectric effect, to measure changes in
pressure, acceleration, temperature, strain, or force by converting them to an electrical
charge/signal. (The prefix piezo- is Greek for 'press' or 'squeeze'.)

Rechargeable Battery
A rechargeable battery, storage battery, secondary cell, or accumulator is a type of electrical battery
which can be charged, discharged into a load, and recharged many times.
Microcontroller

This project uses a Microcontroller to display the amount of battery get charged when we place
our footstep on piezoelectric sensor.
Analog to Digital Converter

An ADC (analog-to-digital converter) is a device that converts analog to digital symbols.

AC Ripple Neutralizer

It is used to remove the ripples from the output of the rectifier and smoothens the o/p of the D.C
which is received from the filter, and it is constant until the load and mains voltage is kept
constant.
Inverter

An inverter is an electrical device that converts direct current to alternating current; the
converted alternating current can be at any required voltage & frequency with the use of
applicable control circuits, transformers and switching.
Voltage Sampler

Voltage Sampler or sample and hold circuit is an essential analog building block and the
applications of voltage sampler include switched capacitor filters and analog-to-digital
converters. The main function of the sample and hold circuit is to sample an analog i/p signal and
hold this value over a particular length of time for subsequent processing.
Unidirectional Current Controller

As term specifies this circuit lets only one direction current flowing. They are diodes and
thyristors. The main function of the diode is, it allows the flow of current in only one direction
while blocking current in the reverse direction.

LCD

LCD display is used in the footstep power generation project to display the voltage status. It is
also provided with a contrast adjusting pin.

Contrast
The contrast of the screen of the LCD can be adjusted to make the screen brighter or darker.

Deliverables
Our project will be effective since its main source is common human day to day activity,
walking, and it is based on simple energy conversion principle. So it is delivered to a public
places like theaters, colleges and schools.

Resource Requirement and Cost Breakdown

Here are the resources required to achieve the deliverables of our proposed system.
Piezoelectric Material

A.C. Ripple Neutralizer

Battery
Inverter
L.C.D. Display
Voltage Sampler and other Components

Tentative Project Plan

State the tentative time plan for the project. Based on the methodology show the time you expect
to take to accomplish each of the tasks.

1st four weeks

2nd four weeks
3rd four weeks

Collecting materials
Design the simulation
Test the designed simulation

References
7

[1]. Shenck, N. and Paradiso, J. 2001. Energy Scavenging

with Shoe- Mounted Piezoelectrics
[2]. Niu P, Chapman P, Riemer R and Zhang X, 2004
Evaluation of motions and actuation methods for
biomechanical energy harvesting, Proc. IEEE 35th
Annual Power Electronics Specialists Conf. (Aachen).
[3]. Kymissis, J., Kendall, C., Paradiso, J., Gershenfeld, N.,
1998, Parasitic Power Harvesting in Shoes, Second
IEEE International Conference on Wearable
Computing.
[4]. Ottman, G.K., Hofmann, H., Bhatt A. C., Lesieutre, G.
A., 2002, Adaptive Piezoelectric Energy
[5]. Harvesting Circuit for Wireless, Remote Power
Supply, IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics.
[6]. J. Navas, T. Bove, J.A. Cobos, F. Nuno, K. Brebol,
Miniaturized Battery Charger Using Piezoelectric
Transformers, Proc. 6th Annual IEEE Applied Power
Electronics Conf.
[7]. Chen, S. & Kang, L., Proposed IEEE P1451.3 MixedMode Smart Transducer Interface, Sensors Expo,
Philadelphia, Oct.1996.
[8]. Brooks, T. & Gidge, B., Smart Industrial Piezoelectric
Accels, IEEE NIST Workshop on Communication
Interface for High-Speed Mixed-Mode Analog Smart
Transducers, June, 1996.
[9]. "IEEE Standard of Piezoelectricity", ANSI/IEEE
Standard 176-178; Also IEEE Trans. Sonics and
Ultrasonics, SU-31, part 2, March 1984.
[10]. S. Roundy, E. S. Leland, J. Baker, E. Carleton, E. Reilly,
E. Lai, B. Otis, J. M. Rabaey, P. K. Wright, and V.
Sundararajan, "Improving power output for vibrationbased energy scavengers," IEEE Pervasive
Computing,
vol. 4, pp. 28-36, 2005.