Bike-Powered Electricity Generator

Finding new energy sources is an important challenge of our times. A lot of research focuses on identifying such sources that can also be exploited with relatively simple and efficient systems. These sources can be either new materials that can be used to generate energy, or solutions to scavenge already existing forms of energy. Part of the latter class of solutions, the system presented in this paper converts the energy consumed by many people in gyms (or even at home, during exercise) into electric energy. This energy exists anyway, because people want to be healthier or to look better. Currently, this significant (in our opinion) amount of energy is actually wasted and transformed into heat. Instead, in this study, a prototype scavenging system (dedicated to fitness/stationary bikes) to collect and (re)use this energy is presented. Specifically, we depict the design of a low-budget system that uses existing, discrete components and is able to scavenge some of the energy spent by the biker. The experimental results show that the system is functional, but its efficiency is limited by (mechanical) losses before the collection.