Paper Generators: Harvesting Energy from Touching, Rubbing and Sliding (Energy Harvesting and Storage Europe 2014)

The Paper Generator is a new energy harvesting technology that generates electrical energy from user interactions with paper-like materials. These energy harvesters are flexible, lightweight, and inexpensive. They utilize a user's gestures such as tapping, touching, rubbing, and sliding to generate energy. The harvested energy then is used to actuate LEDs, e-paper displays, buzzers, and other devices to create interactive applications for books, postcards, posters, and other printed media.

Dr. M. Emre Karagozler is a Post-Doctoral Researcher at Disney Research, Pittsburgh. His research crosses the fields of physics, MEMS, microrobotics, and circuit design and he is currently investigating energy harvesting from user interactions. He received the Ph.D. degree in electrical and computer engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, in 2012.

Disney Research was launched in 2008 as an informal network of research labs that collaborate closely with academic institutions such as Carnegie Mellon University and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zürich (ETH). We're able to combine the best of academia and industry: we work on a broad range of commercially important challenges, we view publication as a principal mechanism for quality control, we encourage engagement with the global research community, and our research has applications that are experienced by millions of people. We're honoring Walt Disney's legacy of innovation by researching novel technologies and deploying them on a global scale.