A research team at Carnegie Mellon University has broken ground on a proof-of-concept that one day may allow for wearable medical devices and consumer electronics to be powered by the human body. The team, comprised of Andy Kong, Daehwa Kim, and Chris Harrison, has developed a receiver which they call Power-over-Skin that harnesses the body’s RF energy. The receiver just needs to have contact with the user’s skin, though in many cases it can work through a user’s clothing.
Researchers have pinpointed that human skin conducts energy most efficiently at 40 MHz, so by optimizing the receiver to receive energy at this frequency, they are able to harness the body’s energy to power electronics. Currently, the prototype technology is effective enough to power devices that only need to take a reading every minute or less, but potentially paves the way for wearables that never need to plugged in or charged at all. “The technology is in the research prototype phase, and future work will have to be done to miniaturize and commercialize it, but the biggest question—can it be done at all?—is now answered,” Harrison remarks to FastCompany. “That’s a huge step towards consumer feasibility.”
