DARPA To Turn Humans Into Batteries

DARPA is working on a project that will convert energy from the human body to power a variety of military gadgets. From the article: "Obviously, our bodies generate heat — thermal energy. They also produce vibrations when we move — kinetic energy. Both forms of energy can be converted into electricity. Anantha Chandrakasan, an MIT electrical engineering professor, who is working on the problem with a former student named Yogesh Ramadass, says the challenge is to harvest adequate amounts of power from the body and then efficiently direct it to the device that needs it." If I remember the movie correctly, this didn't turn out so well for the humans.

Comments

Question

[xednieht]

Why is mankind so obsessed with harvesting energy from the rarest sources in the universe? Why not start with the most abundant sources?

Re:Wrong direction for soldiers?

[david.emery]

Maybe they won't have to carry all of the extra batteries, which will help.

Seriously*, you've hit a significant advantage. The normal 'basic load' of batteries is 30 days, from what I remember, and carrying those batteries around, particularly in Ranger/light infantry/Special Ops units is a tremendous drag. Whatever technique gets used, though, has to account for the fact that light infantry soldiers spend a lot of time being still (because what moves can be seen, and what can be seen will be shot...), so either you need some technique to store the power or you need something that can generate some amount of power when the soldier is not moving.

* for humor on this topic, see my other post ;-)