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Army Engineer Developed Shoe Insole Capable of Generating Electric Power

Design Diagram of the Shoe Insole Technology.
A mechanical engineer with United States of America Army Command, Control, Communication, Computing, Cyber, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C5ISR) Center in Maryland has developed a shoe insole that is capable of generating energy which converted to eletriic power with every taking steps thereby helping to power wearable electronics devices.

That mean in the future, anybody that wear a shoe with the insole technology will be able to charge his set or powered any of his wearable electronics devices just by walking.

Nathan Sharpes, the army engineer who develop the technology said, " we embedded an energy harvesting mechanism into a combat boot heel insole so that each time a soldier's heel strikes it activates a generator which spin to produce energy".

The documentation of the Shoe Insole technology describe it working principle as:

"Linear movement of heel strike sequence for a shoe insole can be converted into rotational movement. The rotational movement can cause rotation of an interior of a generator. Rotation of this interior of the generator can cause electricity to be generated and outputted. The generator can be considered a source of damping so at the start of heel strike sequence the generator can be non engage. After some time the generator can be engaged and in turn rotate. This can allow for standing inertia to be more quickly overcome".

An improved version has been made after the first design. Slight sinking motion the soldiers experience in the first version had been corrected. This make each step of the wearer feel natural. The mechanism inside the insole was also speed up to produce energy for longer time.

The shoe insole technology work on the principles of energy harvesting. The electric power it is capable of generating from the sorounding energy is very small  but enough to power wearable devices and mobile phones.

The invention has been issued US patent number 10,499,703.