The Toronto Globe & Mail reports that “an idea germinated in a biomedical lab at Simon Fraser University is being tested by the U.S. military in a research project meant to turn foot soldiers into their own power-generating stations.”  

“Using a lightweight device that looks like the kind of knee brace a high-performance athlete might wear, soldiers can use the Canadian-designed PowerWalk Kinetic Energy Harvester to produce enough electricity to run their GPS units, night-vision goggles and radios. In the process, they can shed the 20 pounds of batteries they now have to carry into the field.”  

“’They are really trying to take science fiction and turn it into something they can use,’ SFU’s Max Donelan said of the field trials being done by the U.S. military under a $5-million (U.S.) contract with Vancouver-based Bionic Power Inc.”