According to an energy collecting device capable of reusing residual charges using a piezoelectric element proposed in the present invention, the energy collecting device includes the piezoelectric element, a rectifier, a charging/discharging conversion unit, and a digital controller, and a plurality of capacitors included in the charging/discharging conversion unit is converted in a series or parallel connection in a charging mode or a discharging mode, and a connection state of the plurality of capacitors can be converted and connected in one of an entire parallel connection, a partial series connection, and an entire series connection through control of a digital signal in response to a drive voltage for a load to drive under the discharging mode, and thus, it is possible to reuse electric charges remaining in each capacitor to the maximum in response to the drive voltage of the load.

An electrical energy harvesting device for harvesting electrical energy from a pulsed impact loading event. The device including: a piezoelectric element configured to be loaded and unloaded to a first load level by the pulsed impact loading event; and a first inductor coupled to the piezoelectric element configured to be loaded and unloaded to a second load level by the pulsed impact loading event, wherein the piezoelectric element and the first inductor together operate as a first inductor/capacitor (LC) resonant circuit having a first resonance frequency and wherein the loading of the first inductor lags in time the loading of the piezoelectric element.

A power generating device including an element and a moving member. The element is deformable and generates power when deforming. The moving member moves when receiving a vibration, and contacts the element when moving. When the moving member contacts the element, the element deforms into another state or returns to a previous state.

An energy harvesting apparatus using an electroactive material includes an electricity generator including the electroactive material to generate a voltage due to deformation caused by an external stimulus, and an impact generator including a deformable and restorable material capable of repetitive deformation and restoration and configured to generate a dynamic behavior based on the repetitive deformation and restoration in the electricity generator. A stimulus of the impact generator with respect to the electricity generator enables energy harvest. An electrode unit for deformation includes an electricity generator including an electroactive material to generate a voltage due to deformation caused by an external stimulus, and an electrode part electrically connected to at least one surface of the electricity generator, and including an elastically deformable material to achieve relative deformation while in contact with the electricity generator.

An apparatus comprises a piezoelectric element and a mechanical energy storage unit. The mechanical energy storage unit can be configured to receive a force and store the force as stored mechanical energy. The apparatus further comprises a mass configured to receive the stored mechanical energy from the mechanical energy storage unit when the stored mechanical energy is released, move with a velocity as a result of receiving the stored mechanical energy, and deform the piezoelectric element based on the velocity of the mass.

An energy generation system includes a pavement interlayer, comprising: at least one layer of geosynthetic interlayer material, a plurality of piezoelectric elements; at least one transmission line, coupled to the plurality of piezoelectric elements, for transmitting power generated by the plurality of piezoelectric elements to an output.

A device responsive to an acceleration pulse event, the device including: a piezoelectric device configured to generate a voltage over a duration responsive to one or more acceleration pulse events; an electrical storage device configured to receive a portion of the generated voltage to accumulate a charge; an energy dissipating device coupled to the electrical storage device and configured to dissipate the accumulated charge following the one or more acceleration pulse events and not to substantially dissipate the accumulated charge during the one or more acceleration pulse events; and a voltage limiting device coupled to the electrical storage device and configured to limit the portion of the generated voltage applied to the electrical storage device to a predetermined limit.

A high-voltage pulse generator including a plurality of stages and an electrode for returning current to ground, connected in series, each of the stages including at least one energy storage element connected in series with a spark gap. The spark gaps are distributed on an axis, the odd-numbered energy storage elements are arranged on one side of the spark gap axis, and the even-numbered energy storage elements are arranged on the other side of the spark gap axis, such that the circuit formed by the plurality of stages and the current return electrode have a reduced inductance during a discharge phase of the generator, with respect to a generator including the same components laid out according to a conventional architecture.

In some examples, a device includes a charging circuit with a thermoelectric generator and a kinetic energy generator. An embedded controller (EC) monitors a level of a battery in the device. If the level falls below a threshold, the EC may determine, using an accelerometer, whether the device is in motion. If the device is in motion, the EC may use the kinetic energy generator to charge the battery. If the device is not in motion, the EC may determine, using a temperature sensor, whether there is a temperature difference between two portions of the device. If there is a temperature difference, then the EC may use the thermoelectric generator to charge the battery. If the EC determines that the device is not in motion and there is no temperature difference between the two portions, then the EC may instruct the user to charge the device.

A system has a database that stores a plurality of audio/visual clips. Further, the system has a memory device that has a buffer with a threshold quantity of memory blocks. In addition, the system has a processor that receives the plurality of audio/visual clips in an ordered sequence for a virtual sports game. The processor also writes one or more frames of a first audio/visual clip to the buffer. Further, the processor allocates the threshold quantity of memory blocks such that the processing speed of writing one or more frames of a second audio/visual clip to the buffer is faster than a broadcast frame rate for broadcasting the first audio/visual clip. In addition, the processor writes the one or more frames of the second audio/visual clip to the allocated threshold quantity of memory blocks of the buffer.