Conformable Devices

In the MIT Media Lab's Conformable Decoders group, I am working on a project that is developing KNN-based piezoelectric energy harvesters that can conform to curvilinear surfaces on the human body. We hope that these devices can generate enough power to run gate monitoring sensors for Parkinson's patients. Over the summer, I got to brainstorm and prototype many different designs for these wearable devices both individually and with my amazing team!

Early Group Design Brainstorming

The first assignment I had with my undergraduate team was to create designs for wearable piezoelectric energy harvesters based on our individual work from the previous week (see below). We combined our ideas for design, material, and body interaction to make an optimal composite device. We wanted our devices to maximize the strain distinguishability while ensuring that piezos wouldn't fracture under too much strain. We also designed for comfort, wearability, scalability, and minimal weight.

Here are our favorite ideas:

SPRING RING

The Spring Ring design has 2D springs that extend radially away from a semi-rigid ring around the knee periphery. It manipulates the movement of the knee into certain axial directions and can be worn over or under clothes.

PARALLEL GELS

This device has multiple lines of hydrogel channels in parallel with piezos on top. It controls the direction of strain by directing the distribution of the gels when the user bends and flexes the knee. It is more flexible than the Spring Ring device because of the chosen gel material.

MULTI-DIRECTIONAL GEL CHAMBER

This is a hybrid of the Spring Ring and Parallel Gels! It combines the radial geometry of the springs and the controlled movement of the gel. This accounts for multi-direction strain.