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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Electron.
Sec. Wearable Electronics
Volume 6 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/felec.2025.1501178

Low-loss power management strategy for weak and low-frequency biomechanical energy harvesting for new generation wearable electronics

Provisionally accepted
Weilu LI Weilu LI Yongcan Huang Yongcan Huang Chunhua Liu Chunhua Liu Agnes Valencia Agnes Valencia Walid A. Daoud Walid A. Daoud *
  • City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong, SAR China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Amidst the rapidly growing development of wearable electronics, their dependence on external power sources increases the power expense while leading to interruptions of their operation during charging. Biomechanical energy harvesters offer a promising solution for self-powered wearable electronics by converting waste kinetic energy to electricity. Despite successful efforts in advancing their power outputs from µW to mW, several challenges persist, including low output current at the µA-level, high internal impedance in the GΩ-level, and AC outputs, restricting their practical applications. Conventional power management circuits are commonly utilized in high-frequency harvesters without adequate consideration of the energy loss that incurs, potentially leading to circuit failure when used in low-frequency harvesters with a lower power output. Here, we introduce a low-loss power management circuit (L-PMC) that functions under low-frequency conditions to facilitate biomechanical energy harvesting. Our innovative two-stage energy transfer strategy boosts the energy extraction efficiency to 42.24%, breaking previous records. With an energy transfer efficiency of 30.59%, L-PMC can charge a battery from 1.9 V to 2.4 V in just 10 minutes. Moreover, the integration of passive current amplification tripled charge accumulation and energy storage, representing 207% enhancement in energy transfer efficiency, presenting a versatile and universal approach to low-frequency biomechanical energy harvesting for new generation wearable electronics.

    Keywords: biomechanical energy harvester, Power management, circuit optimization, impedance matching, Low-frequency energy storage, Energy Transfer

    Received: 24 Sep 2024; Accepted: 15 Jan 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 LI, Huang, Liu, Valencia and Daoud. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Walid A. Daoud, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong, SAR China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.