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AbbyJones
Combine these technologies into comfortable shoes and there will be much wider ...
iniewski
10W output?!? I highly doubt it, maybe 10mW...the whole human body requires 100W ...
Implant that moves, electric shoes at ISSCC
Rick Merritt
11/21/2011 9:00 AM EST
SAN JOSE – A tiny implant that can propel itself through your body. A tennis shoe that can gather enough energy from walking to power a pedometer. These battery-free devices are two of dozens of designs etched in silicon likely to capture the imagination at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference in February.
Engineers from Asia will present more papers (38) than those from the U.S. (33) or Europe (29) for the first time at ISSCC in 2012. U.S. engineers typically present the majority of papers at the San Francisco event. Last year they gave 36 papers compared to 34 and 30 for Asia and Europe respectively.
Korea was almost single handedly the reason for Asia's rise in 2012, said Kenneth Smith, an ISSCC organizer and professor at the University of Toronto. In 2012, ISSCC staff accepted 30 Korean papers, up from 20 a year ago. The country's well-funded national research center, KAIST, was author of many of the papers.
Meanwhile, Japan submitted fewer papers, in part due to the impact of the March earthquake and tsunami. China actually submitted twice as many papers for the 2012 event (34) than it did a year ago, but it had half as many accepted just two, down from four in 2011.
One of the most novel papers at ISSCC this year describes a chip that can act as a self-propelling medical implant. The 0.6mm2 device can move through fluid in a controlled manner at half a centimeter per second thanks to a 1.8 GHz wireless signal that delivers 500 microwatts to a 65nm receiver.
"The ISSCC paper describes the chip we designed and taped out to demonstrate our propulsion methods on a wireless prototype," said Dan Pivonka, one of two Stanford doctoral candidates who created the device.
The chip uses two propulsion methods described in earlier papers Pivonka co-authored with Stanford professor Teresa Meng, a wireless pioneer who co-found Wi-Fi vendor Atheros. Both propulsions methods "are based on electromagnetic forces that flowing currents experience in a magnetic field," said Pivonka in an email exchange.
A simulation from one of those earlier papers is shown above right.
"The device is capable of controllable motion in any fluid medium, making it very versatile for biomedical applications," he said. "We've been working with the medical community, and so far the primary uses are likely to be precision drug delivery, sensing or imaging for diagnostic purposes, or use as a surgical aid," he added.
Next: Inside an electric shoe
Engineers from Asia will present more papers (38) than those from the U.S. (33) or Europe (29) for the first time at ISSCC in 2012. U.S. engineers typically present the majority of papers at the San Francisco event. Last year they gave 36 papers compared to 34 and 30 for Asia and Europe respectively.
Korea was almost single handedly the reason for Asia's rise in 2012, said Kenneth Smith, an ISSCC organizer and professor at the University of Toronto. In 2012, ISSCC staff accepted 30 Korean papers, up from 20 a year ago. The country's well-funded national research center, KAIST, was author of many of the papers.
Meanwhile, Japan submitted fewer papers, in part due to the impact of the March earthquake and tsunami. China actually submitted twice as many papers for the 2012 event (34) than it did a year ago, but it had half as many accepted just two, down from four in 2011.
One of the most novel papers at ISSCC this year describes a chip that can act as a self-propelling medical implant. The 0.6mm2 device can move through fluid in a controlled manner at half a centimeter per second thanks to a 1.8 GHz wireless signal that delivers 500 microwatts to a 65nm receiver."The ISSCC paper describes the chip we designed and taped out to demonstrate our propulsion methods on a wireless prototype," said Dan Pivonka, one of two Stanford doctoral candidates who created the device.
The chip uses two propulsion methods described in earlier papers Pivonka co-authored with Stanford professor Teresa Meng, a wireless pioneer who co-found Wi-Fi vendor Atheros. Both propulsions methods "are based on electromagnetic forces that flowing currents experience in a magnetic field," said Pivonka in an email exchange.
A simulation from one of those earlier papers is shown above right.
"The device is capable of controllable motion in any fluid medium, making it very versatile for biomedical applications," he said. "We've been working with the medical community, and so far the primary uses are likely to be precision drug delivery, sensing or imaging for diagnostic purposes, or use as a surgical aid," he added.
Next: Inside an electric shoe
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Patk0317
11/21/2011 10:52 AM EST
This is amazing stuff! The advancements in the medical area are particularly exciting and necessary as the boomers begin to need more medical aid as time goes on.
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goafrit
11/21/2011 11:32 AM EST
And also good for the moguls who will make a lot of money after the ICT boom and the medical innovation era begins
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bmws88
11/21/2011 1:17 PM EST
What does majority mean? I thought it meant more than 50%...
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DrQuine
11/21/2011 1:33 PM EST
I'm puzzled that so much design effort is required to power a pedometer. My first pedometer powered itself (like a self winding clock) long before anyone discussed microcircuits. That swinging pendulum inside is just "asking" for something useful to do. I'd think that power could be extracted from shoe based generators (think of a hand crank radios with 100 pounds of weight being available at every step) for more substantial purposes. It seems the hardest part of the process would be the ergonomic design to ensure that the "springiness" of the shoes didn't cause unintended interference with walking.
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iniewski
11/21/2011 4:16 PM EST
Very impressive developments...but they follwed on earlier similar work...what I was mostly surpised was the highest numbers of papers from Asia, kudos to KAIST...Kris
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selinz
11/21/2011 7:15 PM EST
With the progressive demise of my knee cartiledge, I welcome any device that adds some "spring" to my step. I suppose if it additionally provides a source of power for my increasingly needy phone, it'd be welcomed.
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kinnar
11/25/2011 6:58 AM EST
Both the cases of prototypes presented here in the article are very exceptional, the first prototype of controlling the fluid motion will be very much helpful in bio-medical applications. The event discussed in the article will be worth visiting as it not only talks about the paper but working technology is demonstrated in terms of prototypes.
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DrQuine
12/6/2011 6:33 PM EST
Tom Krupenkin of InStep Nanopower claims a shoe power generator could be produced with a 10 watt output that could recharge your cell phones as you walk. Conventional electrowetting uses electrical charges to move liquid droplets to create screen displays. He reverses the process (reverse electrowetting) to generate power as the each step in the shoe pushes droplets past the electrodes. [Bloomberg Businessweek, Dec 5, 2011, page 50]
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iniewski
12/6/2011 7:07 PM EST
10W output?!? I highly doubt it, maybe 10mW...the whole human body requires 100W or so...getting 10Watts out would requires extreme hard work not just walking ;-)...Kris
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AbbyJones
3/28/2012 11:47 PM EDT
Combine these technologies into comfortable shoes and there will be much wider adoption of the products. I love how technology is making our lives a lot easier, and hopefully will be sustainable environmentally.
Abby - http://www.comfortablefoot.com
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