24 Mar No More Batteries! Try Energy Harvesting
Energy harvesting is a technology that gathers tiny wattages of power from hidden sources such as motion, temperature or vibration. It can generate enough kinetic energy to run your wristwatch and sufficient piezoelectric energy to sparkle your child’s light-up shoes.
Modern energy harvesting technology took off in the 1990s and cut its teeth in the computer, electronics and photovoltaic industries. It’s had a chance to mature. Now, it is time for innovative devices and tools that exploit energy harvesting technologies to be easily translated into state-of-the art medical and clinical applications.
Medical devices, especially wearables that harvest energy passively require no batteries. Therefore, they pose little potential chemical health hazards to patients and generally simplify the electronics. They can be completely sealed and easily autoclaved for repeated use. Such tools are not constrained by a battery shape and can take on nearly unlimited form factors to suit a host of biological applications. For example, imagine developing a paper-thin hospital wristband that not only serves as a patient identifier, but also captures vital statistics and wirelessly transmits these data to a physician’s remote receiver. Recently, Key Tech developed a surgical device using energy harvesting from operator motion to provide status information to the user. Energy harvesting allowed Key Tech to place operator controls and feedback in an intuitive location that was inaccessible via standard cabling and where batteries were not viable. It opened up design options that otherwise would have been untenable, and proved to be a simple, yet elegant, solution that improved the usability of the device.
Designing innovative products that use energy harvesting poses interesting engineering challenges. For one, the size of current energy harvesting devices is between that of a matchbook and a deck of cards. This is still larger than we’d like them to be for medical purposes . We envision a future where devices become less obtrusive but still accomplish desired tasks. Thankfully, the energy budget for these devices is small. Just a few nano- to mili-watts of power are all that is needed to achieve many clinically relevant functions, such as detecting tiny gradients in temperature or shifts in blood sugar levels.
Key Tech designers have been attentive to ongoing improvements in energy harvesting technology. Continually shrinking sizes means more functionality can be packed into tight spaces, and improving power management means more features than ever before can be powered without batteries.
We are poised to help our clients realize the innovative, non-battery powered clinical products of the future. We are excited about the potential of this technological idea that is as old as Dutch windmills but is as forward thinking as engineering ought to be. For that fresh perspective in your product pipeline, please contact Key Tech here.
Outside of the office Josh is an active person, participating in local sports leagues and traveling the country playing Ultimate Frisbee. He has a BS in Electrical Engineering from Bucknell University.
- No More Batteries!Try Energy Harvesting - March 24, 2016
- The Value of Simplicity in Prototype Development - December 9, 2015
- World Cup Goes High Tech - June 23, 2014