Backpack generates its own electricity

In the days immediately following Hurricane Katrina, radio and phone communication suffered, in part, when rechargeable batteries died and could not be recharged due to widespread power outages. A new backpack design may offer a way for first responders and disaster relief workers to generate their own electricity for communications devices, night vision goggles, water purifiers or other crucial, portable electronics.

All the person wearing the backpack has to do is walk — the backpack does the rest. The backpack captures energy from the up-and-down movements of its heavy contents and converts this energy to electricity.

The new research is published in the Sept. 9 issue of the journal Science published by AAAS, the nonprofit science society.

“I wrote the first draft of the Science paper during the relief effort following the 2004 tsunami. I was struck by continual reports of people not being able to communicate because satellite phone batteries went dead,” said backpack inventor Larry Rome.

In light of the power outages that are burdening relief efforts in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, it’s clear that disaster relief workers who can generate their own electricity would be more effective than relief workers without the ability to generate their own power, explained Rome, a biology professor from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, PA and the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, MA.

The backpack looks a lot like the metal framed packs people use to carry their gear during long trips. The backpack captures energy from this movement with a series of gears connected to an electric generator.

“The idea behind the suspended-load backpack isn’t complicated. It just took a person with the right background and a little creativity to put the pieces together,” said Rome.

Larry Rome Backpack inventor Larry Rome wearing his energy generating backpack.

Rome is an accidental backpack inventor. Much of his research is focused on the muscles that allow fish to swim and frogs to jump. He first envisioned a backpack as a sustainable way for humans to generate electricity from walking when he worked on a project aimed at making a submersible vehicle that swims like a fish.

Electrifying hip movement
The side-to-side sway of a person’s hips may be more familiar, but it’s the up-and-down movement of the hips that can power a gadget that feeds on electricity.

When you walk, you put one foot down and then your body vaults over that leg, causing the hip to move up and down by about five centimeters.

If you are carrying a heavy backpack when you walk, it takes extra energy to vault the backpack over your leg. The new backpack harvests this energy by separating the movement of the backpack’s heavy cargo from the movement of the frame.

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