30.

580 Research Projects Project Report

Pocket Power
Project Title:

Pocket Power
(A low cost, light-weight, tiny and robust last call charging system)

Name of the student: Rajasekaran Ganeshkumar

(1000799)
Project Supervisor:

Dr. Erik Wilhelm

Objective:
New products drive business. To remain competitive, there is need for continuous search for new
methods to evolve products. In this project, our objective is to design and develop a low cost pocket
power that can charge your mobile phone or handheld devices. Smartphones are, for the most part
really nice. However the battery is a big issue. Its inevitable, at some point during a busy day travel,
your phone is running out of battery particularly when you need it. This project aims to solve that
problem by coming up with an energy-harvesting device that can charge your phone for one last call
on the go. To address this problem, we use reverse engineering and redesign methodology. We start
by formulating the customer needs, followed by reverse engineering, creating a functional model to
meet this goal. The concepts formulated are used to ideate new design and develop a tiny, lighter in
weight, ergonomic product that meets the design specification intact.
Reverse Engineering:
Reverse engineering is the process of discovering the technological principles of a device, object or
system through analysis of its structure, function and operation. It often involves disassembling
something (a mechanical device, electronic component) and analyzing its components and workings
in detail to support creation of a new device that does the same thing without using the original or
simply duplicating. We follow a systematic methodology proposed by Kris L Wood et.al [1] that
helps us to understand the product evolution in better way and how to execute the planned redesign.
Several tasks are done to execute an effective redesign of a commercial product and we follow them
for the Pocket power as described in steps below.

Rajasekaran Ganeshkumar

30.580 Research Projects Project Report

Pocket Power
Step 1: Investigation and Hypothesis
Investigation is process of exploring the working principle of the device. Helps us understand the
overall product function though we have very little knowledge of the internal components of the
product. A black box model is created after knowing the inputs and outputs flow of the pocket
power, helps us to have an unbiased perception of the possible product evolution.
Fig 1. Black Box Model
Mechanical"energy"
(linear"or"rotational"
action)

No#of#rotations
Total&time&of&input

Keychain)
based&mini&
Energy'
Harvester
!to#charge#
hand%held%

DC#Power#output
5V#/#1#A

USB$Output
LED$Indications

Step 2: Customer feedback and need analysis

Based on the black box model, we have managed to look for already available solution that uses
hand crank to charge your mobile phone for last call/sms in an emergency. Customer needs are
gathered for the product, which are used to describe the product design specification in a complete
way. For the purpose of our methodology, the task for getting feedback from the users is done by
circulating questionnaires over the web for an appropriate sample space of twenty. With the feedback
forms information is interpreted as below
Fig 2. Customer feedback analysis
If"there"is"a"handy"self6powered"keychain"
based"mobile"charger"at"a"price"around"
10$,"will"you"give"a"try?"
No"

Yes"

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rajasekaran Ganeshkumar

0"

5"

10"

15"

20"

30.580 Research Projects Project Report

Pocket Power

Step 3: Functional Prediction

We were able to analyze the data from the customer feedback and begin the development of the
product by predicting the functions or tasks required. It includes forming a structure or flow diagram
explaining the mechanism of the product. A flow is a physical phenomenon intrinsic to a product
operation or sub-function. For example in our product is converting mechanical energy to electrical
energy.
Fig 3. Predicted functional flow of the product

Step 4: Teardown and Experimentation

We managed to find few already available solutions to the above addressed issue and analyze its
operation by disassembling them. It is studies to know whey these products are unsuccessful.
a) Hand-crank generator
The mechanics of hand-powered generators are not too complicated. They work like other generators
except your arm rather than other sources provides the initial energy.

Rajasekaran Ganeshkumar

30.580 Research Projects Project Report

Pocket Power

Figure 4. Hand crank generator / Dissassembly

b) Battery backup

Figure 5. Battery Backup plugged into Smartphone

They are hand carry external batteries that can charge your smartphone by just plugging them.
Solutions

Advantages

Disadvantages

Hand Crank

Low cost ($10-$20)

No batteries, available in small
form factor and weighs less

Unreliable power output

Not ergonomic

Heavy (as if carrying one more

Reliable power
smartphone)
Battery backup
Sturdy and ergonomic designs
Expensive (>$40)
Energy and Power limited!
Table 1. Comparison between the solutions available
Rajasekaran Ganeshkumar

30.580 Research Projects Project Report

Pocket Power
Step 5: Forming Engineering Specifications
The last phase of the reverse engineering entails the forming of specifications, benchmarking and
choosing the product systems that is to be evolved. This helps us in redesign process. Good energy
system requires a better understanding of where and how the energy is used. Review on the power
consumption of the smartphone entities and overall system is studied using energy profiler.
Table 1. Power required by different entities in a mobile phone [2]
Technology/Entity
CPU Usage
Display
Voice

Action

Power [mW]

Boot (50%)

400

30% intensity

65

2G call

700

Total

Energy [J]

1165

360

To know particularly the power and energy consumed by a smartphone to charge its battery from
zero percent to full charge is measured using Energy consumption meters [3]. As we know there are
many players in the smartphone market, we consider two namely iPhone 5 and Galaxy S3 as they are
told to be best ones in the segment. The table below shows how much energy does these
smartphones and time taken to charge the battery to full.
Table 3. Energy consumed by a Smartphone [3]
Smartphone
Samsung S3

Measured Energy
Consumed
0% to 100%
12.2 Watt-hours

Time taken
2 hrs 15 min (6W)

Calculated energy
consumption
0% to 3%
0.40 Watt-hours

iPhone 5

9.5 Watt-hours

1 hrs 50 min (5.5W)

0.34 Watt-hours

Assuming the usage time around 5 min, total energy required by the smartphone for one last call in
emergency is around 0.1 Watt-hours (360 J).
Design Specification:
From the reverse engineering methodology and the steps followed, we derive the final design
specifications. Weight of the product is considered most important parameter to be taken care as the
customer feedback and need analysis implies the factor that device weight and cost influence them to
buy the charger. From the above engineering specifications, we come to know the average power
needed to charge the smartphone is 5W. So our final design specifications are tabled below and using
which we ideate designs.
Rajasekaran Ganeshkumar

30.580 Research Projects Project Report

Pocket Power
Table 4. Design Specifications
Parameters

Specifications

Size

3-4 cm

Weight

25 g

Output Voltage

5V

Output current

1A

Power

5W

Total cost

<10$

Re-design:
The underlying principal of electrical power generation defines the efficiency of generation and type
of required human action. Designing power-harvesting devices therefore has to be considered from
the user interaction perspective because different interaction activities require quite difference power
generators. The following designs are some solutions as we consider human power generation as a
user interface design problem.
a) Design 1
The design was inspired from widely available hand crank flashlights. That uses the to and fro
motion of the lever converted to rotational motion using the gears that in-turn converted to Electrical
energy using a dc motor. We could be able to generate the required power but the size and weight of
the final device becomes larger and out of the considerations.

Fig 6. Design 1

Rajasekaran Ganeshkumar

Fig 7. Design 2

30.580 Research Projects Project Report

Pocket Power
b) Design 2
This ideation came from analogy of the lawn mover or motor started we used earlier days. The
working mechanism is to pull a thread and release it, where the thread is connected to a spring that
stores the enough energy and when the thread is released, it uses the stored energy to rotate the shaft
of the motor thus generating electricity. The power generated depends on the thread length, which is
a major constraint on developing this device. Also the electricity generation is using the motor
where the size and weight matters. These constraints make the above two proposed designs unrealizable.
Though the energy generation using DC motors gives enough power needed to charge the
smartphone, we have few concerns using them, as it weighs more and bigger in size. Thus we
studied other energy harvesting mechanisms such as piezoelectric, electromagnetic and electret.
Piezoelectric mechanism is not potentially viable to generate power around 5W, whereas in
electromagnetic, we need to use permanent magnets that can disturb other electronic devices around.
c) Proposed design: Electret based Energy Harvester
Electrets: (formed of elektr- from electricity and -et from magnet) Dielectric materials that
hold quasi-permanent electric charge. One way to think of an electret is as a capacitor that always
carries a charge and that you never have to recharge. Recently the electret principle was utilized to
convert human finger tapping inot power to actuate an array of flashing LEDs [4].
A ball shaped keychain design is proposed which incorporates the electret layers. The radius of the
ball is 3cm and the cross section of the proposed design is given here.

Figure 8. Layered structure of the proposed energy harvesting device

Rajasekaran Ganeshkumar

30.580 Research Projects Project Report

Pocket Power
Electret material used is TEFLON or PTFE (50 micron thick) as it has the capability to store the
static electric charges for longer period compared to other materials.
Principle of Operation:
The operation of the Electret Generators relies on
1. The movement of the two conductive sheets (silver polyester) relative to each other and the
electret (PTFE).
2. Energy is created when a user moves electrodes. As the relative positions of the sheets
change, the distribution of the induced charges, the electric field, and the total capacitance
between the conductors change, resulting in an electric potential difference between the
conductors.

Figure 9. Electret Energy Harvesting: principle of operation

In our application, the field source is the semi-permanent charge on the surface of the thin and
flexible sheet of PTFE. When the sheet is brought near to conductive objects like sheets of silver, the
charge on the PTFE attracts the free charges of opposite polarity. These charges accumulate on the
surface of the Teflon sheet as shown in figure, because PTFE has very low electron affinity than
rubber. When the conductive sheets are moved relative to each other, then field source are converted
into electrical energy that can do work.
Tapping or Pressing on the top of the keychain are simple, intuitive gestures that everyone is
familiar with everyday experiences and have numerous same kind of applications. The generator
utilizes the layered structure described previously, when the top electrode is pressed, it touches the
electret (PTFE) creating a voltage spike. As the electrode is flexible, it recoils to its original position
when the users hand is retracted.
The electrical energy generated is used to charge a capacitor and only released to the load when a
certain amount of energy is reached. This results in significantly increased power density to charge
the smartphone.

Rajasekaran Ganeshkumar

30.580 Research Projects Project Report

Pocket Power
Summary:
We have proposed and presented a key chain based charger; an electret based energy harvesting
device that generates electrical energy from user interaction (pressing) to charge the smartphone for
one last call. The device can be assembled using the thin film materials like PTFE and silver
polyester that are readily available. These materials are light, flexible and inexpensive, which make
the final device a light, tiny and robust last call charger.
The proposed design does have certain limitations. Firstly, implanting the initial charges to the
Teflon material is difficult. As the Teflon material is highly resistive, the current output from this
design is very low. Thus we need to procure specific ultra-capacitors that can store and release the
energy or look for other options like energy store-and-release devices already available; making the
device bigger in size.
Future Works:
To proceed is to procure the above-mentioned materials and prototype the design. The measurements
and experiments from the prototype help us to understand the operation better. The characteristics of
the device will tell us about the harvesting circuit requirements. We believe, the AC voltage spikes
from the tapping generator should be regulated using rectifiers and converted to DC signal, which is
then fed to a capacitor.
Acknowledgements:
I would like to thank Dr. Erik Wilhelm for his support and help on this project. I would like to thank
Dr. Hong Yee Low for the guidance throughout the course and SUTD for the funding and
encouragement.
References:
[1] Kevin N Otto, Kristin L Wood, Product Evolution: A reverse engineering and redesign
methodology, Research in Engineering Design 1998
[2] Perrucci GP, Survey on Energy Consumption Entities on the Smartphone platform, Nokia
Research Centre, 2006
[3] Aron Carroll, An analysis of Power Consumption in a Smartphone, 2007
[4] Mustafa EK et.al., Paper Generators: Harvesting Energy from Touching, Rubbing and Sliding,
UIST13 - Disney Research 2013
[6] Awad Saad, New electret charging technique for energy harvesting SPIE Newsroom 2012

Rajasekaran Ganeshkumar

30.580 Research Projects Project Report

Pocket Power
[7] http://blog.opower.com/2012/09/how-much-does-it-cost-to-charge-an-iphone-5-athought-provokingly-modest-0-41year/
[8] Customers need analysis questionnaire form. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/
1ZLIpDhE85OBZ6idVdKT7GzaBBx5Bed3D52cILweT5No/viewform

Rajasekaran Ganeshkumar

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