Once I have read an anecdote about the famous Thomas Edison. You know, he was the greatest inventor of his time. Edison had created a gate which caught the energy when people entered his yard, in the same time pumping up water into a basin. Great, isn’t it? Based on the same theory, a group of university researchers from the United States and Canada have developed a prototype knee brace that captures energy produced by human body during walking.

“You could easily power 10 cell phones at once. There are some low power computers that you could power. You could imagine devices like GPS locaters, satellite phones,” said Arthur Kuo, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Michigan.

The principle of working is the following: the knee brace captures energy lost when a person brakes the knee after swinging the leg forward to take a step, the researchers said. The device can generate 5 watts of electricity walking at a leisurely 2.2 mph (3.5 kph) showed their tests. It works similarly to the way that regenerative braking charges a battery in hybrid cars. However, the knee brace power generator weights a little to much to be a gadget - about 3.5 pounds (1.6 kg). For the moment the scientists researches continue to find a better way of collecting the energy in a smaller device. Anyway the progress is outstanding! Think a little about the advantages of pumping energy in all sorts of gadgets while walking. That’s totally amazing!

via Reuters

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