How Many Knee Braces Does It Take To Power Your Cell Phone?

How Many Knee Braces Does It Take To Power Your Cell Phone?
Whilst the use of knee braces have long been used to either
support or prevent damage to the ligaments of American Pro
footballers, recent scientific developments have
highlighted a much more intriguing use: the knee brace
harnessing the kinetic energy of the knee movement and
storing it. Boffins from the University of Pittsburgh and
the Simon Fraser University in Canada have found a way to
harness 30 minutes cell phone time from 1 minute's walking.
Keep that up and The Pittsburgh Steelers could power their
own floodlights during matches!

It has to be said that such a notion is actually along way
off, but so far the bionic knee brace is causing quite a
stir. It appears as a conventional example of a supportive
knee brace; it weighs 3.5 pounds (that's 1.6 kilos for the
more metrically minded). It harvests the same energy from
the muscular breaking motion of the knee in walking as
regenerative vehicles, such as the Toyota Prius, will
harvest electricity from the breaking capacity within the
car. A minute or so of walking at a moderate pace of 2.2
miles per hour generated 5 watts of power.

This is not a new idea: aside from knee braces such energy
harvesters have been tried in backpacks and heels of shoes.
Unfortunately these devices have either been much heavier
than the knee brace, or have simply been less effective in
providing enough wattage.

The benefits of this knee brace technology have been
outlined by the researchers: they envisage it use by the
military, supplying the energy for everything to GPS
devices to night-vision goggles. The energy from these knee
braces will also help those people in areas where the mass
generation of electricity is not possible: as with
clockwork radios, these devices might allow the use of
low-powered computers. Medically Knee Brace power could be
used to help those who require prosthetics or exo-skeletons.

Of course, the idea of the human as battery has been the
stuff of cinematic nightmares for years. Despite the
beneficial claims, there will probably be a nagging doubt
in everyone's mind. There may be visions perhaps, of armies
of "Cybermen" clunking around the planet, controlling the
population through the power of their energy-harvesting
knee braces. The growing pace of technology, has always fed
these more negative speculations, but hey, at least this
form of knee brace fuel is a greener type of conquest!

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So do knee braces have use beyond protecting your knees?
You bet they do! How about using them as a power source!
You had better believe it. Read more at
http://www.braceyourknee.com/power-to-knee-brace.html
Charlie Cory writes about knee braces at
http://www.braceyourknee.com/ and fitness at
http://www.home-fitness-online.com