As the United Nations stresses towards clean energy, via its sustainable development goals (goal number 7), animate prime movers are yet another renewable energy resource, which may contribute towards the betterment of humanity. Though considered out-of-place in the modern and futuristic human society, their appropriate utilization, while ensuring welfare elements, can still provide benefits to mankind. In fact, various modern pieces of research mention animal based work in different areas. The current article discusses two concept schemes for renewable/sustainable power generation via animals – issues with prior art have been discussed to bring out the effectiveness of the presented schemes. Furthermore, a simulation based study has been presented in this article, which is another contribution, because studies of animal based power generation, generally do not include simulation work. Lastly, a methodology for training an expert system to detect the fatigue of a power generating animal, has also been briefly discussed in this manuscript.

Abstract: This paper presents a prototype of a power generating treadmill for large animate prime movers i.e., living beings producing power. Instances of of animals which may be used as animate prime movers can be equines in a stable or bovines in a dairy farm or even caprines in a livestock farm etc. Such a machine can be beneficial for large dairy farms, as it might be able to make the farm self-sufficient and sustainable in terms of electricity by producing renewable power. Furthermore, it can also serve as an exercise set-up foe farms animals providing them with health benefits. The current paper discusses the initial phase of this work which began with small sized treadmill – subsequently, the concept was up-scaled and a large treadmill with iron frame and wooden bed was created along with tarpaulin belt and iron side barriers. A DC electric power generator was coupled to the front shaft of the treadmill for converting the muscular power of animals into electrical energy. The paper presents different phases of construction of this treadmill, electric power generation was finally tested via humans moving on the belt - the training phase of animals for the machine is to come subsequently.

The manuscript is our research paper - not yet submitted to a journal - and is about systems thinking (which is a root for Systems Engineering) and affective domain (which is one of the three domains of the Bloom’s Taxonomy used for Outcome Based Education in Engineering in Pakistan)