Australian scientists develop battery run backpack

A team at Australia’s national science agency, the Commonwealth Scentific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), invented a flexible battery with the potential to revolutionalise wearable technology, in 2007.

Now, the Advanced Energy Storage team has incorporated the battery into a wearable technology system, known as the Flexible Integrated Energy Device (FIED), and are presently testing it as a backpack.

A member of the CSIRO team, AdamBest, while speaking with Mashable, said the FIED has three main parts: an energy harvesting system that gathers energy from the wearers movements and is located between the backpack straps and the pack, a flexible battery that stores energy, and fabric woven from conductive fibres, which can also function as cabling to connect electronic devices. Best also added that the wearable energy system could be used to power a GPS, a light, and an iPod or something similar.

He also suggested that the FIED system could be helpful in the mining industry, or anywhere where people work in dangerous conditions and need to wear location devices and keep them charged. It could also assist elderly people who need to wear alarms that notify carers when they fall over and don’t get up. There are also defense opportunities, he added.