Wearable TENG Sensor Embedded in Kinesio Tape as a Self-Powered Active Biomechanical Joint Motion Sensor.

Triboelectric Nanogenerators (TENG) in field of wearable human motion sensors has shown significant potential in biomedical monitoring and athlete posture sensing which requires the proper power management circuit. Hence the idea of scavenging the biomechanical energy would minimise this issue thereby giving a new insight towards self-powered devices. We propose a flexible, wearable Kinesio tape based triboelectric nanogeneartor (KT-TENG) which converts the biomechanical energy of knee joints to electrical energy that is further programmed to monitor the athlete’s motion. This works on contact and separation mode where Ecoflex and copper are the negative and positive tribolelectric layers of KT-TENG which is fabricated using a cost-effective approach. The device generates a maximum voltage of ~5V and ~1μA of current respectively. The performance analysis proves that KT-TENG has the potential to contribute towards the energy conversion process providing original intended benefits to athletes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]