Team Members & Role:

• Mischa deRuijter
• Tom Mazeika
• Cam Greiner
• Gabe Nadelstein

Abstract:
In the recent decades, renewable energy technologies have seen rapid growth in both efficiency and commercial use. Similarly, A whole new industry of green products has appeared with a focus on minimizing environmental impacts throughout a product’s entire lifecycle. Sustainability has cemented itself as a significant design factor in today’s engineering process. The goal of our project was to develop a device that effectively generates power from the user’s body heat. This was accomplished using several thermoelectric generators (TEG) integrated throughout a compression vest. The TEGs can generate power through the temperature difference between the human body and ambient air. TEGs are direct power converters with no moving parts. They are extremely reliable and can create power without access to an existing grid. Thermal analysis of the TEG was conducted, and simulations ran in MATLAB allowing our team to establish an expected power supply in each environment. With the passive power generation achieved across 6 TEGs we focused our efforts on finding a feasible application for this power. We successfully incorporated a GPS tracking system into the prototype, displaying functionality of our power generation. This prototype acts as a proof of concept for what wearable electronics can hope to accomplish in the future. Advancements in thermoelectric efficiency and flexibility of TEG’s will hopefully expand the possible functions of body heat harvesting and wearable electronics, with significant potential in commercial, military, and humanitarian applications.