Solar Based Human Embedded Energy Harvester

Solar energy is available as the most abundant energy in the universe which can be utilized through solar cells for meeting the power requirements of all biomedical devices used for health betterment. Solar cell of low cost has been chosen as the harvester to be embedded inside human body in order to experience the amount of power it generates while exposed to sunlight. A novel and low cost Solar based human embedded energy harvester (SHEH) is designed, fabricated and tested at indoor and outdoor environment. The power produced by this harvester is greater as compared to other energy scavengers due to availability of sunlight in greater quantity. The harvester having solar cell of an area of 2.64 cm2is embedded inside human skin for experimentation under different light intensity levels. A solar cell is used as sensor made from silicon for generating charge through photovoltaic effect. The solar cell is characterized at indoor and outdoor environment with maximum load voltage of 2.41 V for indoor and 3.03 V for outdoor environment. This energy is enough to meet the power requirement of the implantable device inside human body. The power generated from this harvester lies in the range of 9 mW to 460 mW. Maximum voltage produced by SHEH for outside walk is 2.61 V while for indoor walk is 2.2 V.