Pacesetters was a proposed

energy-harvesting Energy harvesting (EH, also known as power harvesting or energy scavenging or ambient power) is the process by which energy is derived from external sources (e.g., solar power, thermal energy, wind energy, salinity gradients, and kinetic energ ...

scheme created by Facility Architects, a

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

-based design firm. Its announced aim was to harness the vibrations generated by activities within a city and generate electricity for lighting purposes. The electronics company

Philips Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), commonly shortened to Philips, is a Dutch multinational conglomerate corporation that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, it has been mostly headquartered in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarters is ...

and

Hull University , mottoeng = Bearing the Torch f learning, established = 1927 – University College Hull1954 – university status , type = Public , endowment = £18.8 million (2016) , budget = £190 millio ...

also took part in the project."Man power: a great alternative"
''The Independent'', 25 October 2006

History

DARPA The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military. Originally known as the Ad ...

(Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) of the United States pioneered research into the field of energy harvesting from vibrations, wanting to reduce the use of heavy rechargeable batteries that power communication devices carried by soldiers into battlefields. Most of the research was spent in development of "heel-strike" generators, powered by the pumping motion of a footstep, which would be embedded within a heel of an army boot. They succeeded in achieving upwards of 3 - 6 watts of power output.

Design

There were two design

prototypes A prototype is an early sample, model, or release of a product built to test a concept or process. It is a term used in a variety of contexts, including semantics, design, electronics, and software programming. A prototype is generally used t ...

considered. The first was a staircase that would contain either

hydraulic Hydraulics (from Greek: Υδραυλική) is a technology and applied science using engineering, chemistry, and other sciences involving the mechanical properties and use of liquids. At a very basic level, hydraulics is the liquid counter ...

piezoelectric Piezoelectricity (, ) is the electric charge that accumulates in certain solid materials—such as crystals, certain ceramics, and biological matter such as bone, DNA, and various proteins—in response to applied mechanical stress. The word ' ...

mechanisms within the steps to absorb the kinetic energy from stairclimbers' footfalls and convert it into electricity. This method was believed to more efficient as more energy is expended by the commuters to ascend a staircase. The second design was a

wireless Wireless communication (or just wireless, when the context allows) is the transfer of information between two or more points without the use of an electrical conductor, optical fiber or other continuous guided medium for the transfer. The mos ...

system of lighting that would use tiny generators with components designed to resonate at the same frequency of surrounding vibrations. The resonance would then either move a tiny

magnet A magnet is a material or object that produces a magnetic field. This magnetic field is invisible but is responsible for the most notable property of a magnet: a force that pulls on other ferromagnetic materials, such as iron, steel, nic ...

relative to a coil of wire looped around it or apply pressure to a crystal inside the generator to create

current Currents, Current or The Current may refer to: Science and technology * Current (fluid), the flow of a liquid or a gas ** Air current, a flow of air ** Ocean current, a current in the ocean *** Rip current, a kind of water current ** Current (stre ...

. Light-emitting diodes or

LED A light-emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor device that emits light when current flows through it. Electrons in the semiconductor recombine with electron holes, releasing energy in the form of photons. The color of the light (cor ...

s connected to such vibration harvesters could be used to illuminate areas where constant heavy vibration is present, such as train or metro stations, airports or highways. This system would have enabled lighting without any cables or wires connected to the

power grid An electrical grid is an interconnected network for electricity delivery from producers to consumers. Electrical grids vary in size and can cover whole countries or continents. It consists of:Kaplan, S. M. (2009). Smart Grid. Electrical Power ...

References

External links

* * {{cite web, title=Vibrations Tec, url=http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2006/06/26/vibrations_tec.html, publisher=

Discovery Channel Discovery Channel (known as The Discovery Channel from 1985 to 1995, and often referred to as simply Discovery) is an American cable channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav. , Discovery Chan ...

, accessdate=22 December 2016, url-status=dead, archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20060701033007/http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2006/06/26/vibrations_tec.html, archivedate=1 July 2006 Sustainable energy

History

Design

See also

References

External links