Japan's Brother Industries has developed vibration-powered generators that could replace AA and AAA batteries, dubbed the Vibration-powered Generating Battery. According to the company, the invention can generate power by being shaken, even when installed in the gadget it's meant to power. This development is intended to slow down the need to replace and dispose of toxic batteries in everyday devices such as remote controls or wireless computer peripherals.
It is thought that the generator is ideally suited for devices that don't require a constant draw of power, and have a power consumption of about 100mW, which is suitable for small devices; the remote control, for instance, only needs between 40-mW and 100-mW of power to operate.
Image source: UNP
The battery shaped case contains an electromagnetic induction generator and an electric double layer capacitor rated at about 500mF. The average output of the AA generator is between 10mW and 180mW, at a frequency of between 4 and 8Hz. Shaking of the battery itself or the device, in which it is placed, will produce the power. The company has produced prototypes for both AA and AAA batteries and will demonstrate them at the Techno-Frontier exhibition this week in Tokyo.
Top image: Bethesda Green
For more read : Energy Harvesting and Storage for Electronic Devices 2010-2020
