Power Generating Backpack
A group at University of Pennsylvania has come up with the “Suspended Load Backpack”, intended to capture electrical power as a side effect of human walking movements while carrying a backpack.
Their project was aimed towards military applications in which soldiers routinely carry 80 pounds of equipment, including up to 20 pounds of spare batteries. They claim that an 80 pound suspended load backpack can generate around 7.4 watts while moving at “a steady clip”. They also tested with smaller loads, presumably with reduced power output.
For comparison, a typical pack of 4 rechargable NiMH AA batteries might put out 1800mAH, or a total power capacity of around 8-9 watt-hours. The 80 pound test load reported in the UPenn press release is much heavier than most people would be willing to carry at all, let alone while traveling at a “steady clip”, but even a lower power output of 3 to 4 watts would be adequate for powering and/or charging small devices.
I wonder how the backpack actually performs as a backpack. The frame suspension and generator look a bit heavy already, and it sounds like the load moves up and down a couple of inches, which might be ok or might be enough to throw off your stride.
via BoingBoing, CNN
See also: Solar Power Backpack, Solar Backpack Wireless Hotspot
Update 09-24-2005 10:15 PDT: Article at National Geographic, article with video at MSNBC
Tags: offgrid, power, ruraldevelopment
