Smart Kinetic Floor System for Energy Harvesting and Data Acquisition in High Foot-Traffic Areas

This work explores energy harvesting through kinetic energy capture from human steps. The proposed smart floor system, consisting of multiple smart tiles, offers a promising solution for energy generation and data acquisition in high foot-traffic areas, such as shopping centers. The smart tile incorporates an energy generation and storage system, along with a data acquisition and transmission system. The use of only an accelerometer for both step and energy data acquisition minimizes power impact. An edge computing approach processes acceleration data directly on the tile, transmitting essential information, such as event steps and generated energy, to the cloud via the tile WiFi connection. This information can be used for floor optimization and commercial uses based on customer tracking. Sustainability analysis indicates that for real-time monitoring the current smart tile system requires around 15540 steps per tile for 10 h for sustainability, but this can be reduced to 362 steps by implementing power-saving techniques if a real-time feature is not required. Further research can lead to practical and commercially viable applications, contributing to a greener future.