CommunityEditor
10-06-2008, 08:57 PM
A team from DuPont has won the Pentagon’s Wearable Power Prize competition, producing a super-lightweight power pack that produces at least 20 watts of power for more than 96 hours.
The competition, launched in July 2007 by the Pentagon’s Research and Engineering Directorate to give troops a long-endurance, lightweight power pack, concluded Oct. 4 at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center at Twentynine Palms, Calif.
The entries of all six finalists met power and time parameters. But the DuPont/Smart Fuel Cell team was the lightest, coming in at 8.293 pounds. That was 28 grams lighter — a bit less than an ounce — than the entry of the second-place finisher, AMI of Ann Arbor, Mich. Jenny 600S of Middleburg, Va., took third place.
The entries of all finalists weighed less than 8.8 pounds.
“These systems show great promise to reduce the weight of batteries [troops] have to carry while performing their critical missions,” said William Rees Jr., deputy undersecretary for defense laboratories and basic sciences.
“All the teams that competed have moved wearable power technology forward,” Rees said. “We look forward to working with individual inventors, small businesses and larger companies on developing their technologies for further use by the Department of Defense.”
Pentagon researchers will now look at the work of the top three finishers to “see where we go from here,” said Cmdr. Darryn James, a Pentagon spokesman.
The goal, James said, is to put something into production and to “get a power pack to the warfighter.”
The teams, which all employed fuel cell or battery technologies or a combination of the two, won $1 million, $500,000 and $250,000, respectively.
Article: http://www.militarytimes.com/news/2008/10/military_wearablepower_102008w/
The competition, launched in July 2007 by the Pentagon’s Research and Engineering Directorate to give troops a long-endurance, lightweight power pack, concluded Oct. 4 at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center at Twentynine Palms, Calif.
The entries of all six finalists met power and time parameters. But the DuPont/Smart Fuel Cell team was the lightest, coming in at 8.293 pounds. That was 28 grams lighter — a bit less than an ounce — than the entry of the second-place finisher, AMI of Ann Arbor, Mich. Jenny 600S of Middleburg, Va., took third place.
The entries of all finalists weighed less than 8.8 pounds.
“These systems show great promise to reduce the weight of batteries [troops] have to carry while performing their critical missions,” said William Rees Jr., deputy undersecretary for defense laboratories and basic sciences.
“All the teams that competed have moved wearable power technology forward,” Rees said. “We look forward to working with individual inventors, small businesses and larger companies on developing their technologies for further use by the Department of Defense.”
Pentagon researchers will now look at the work of the top three finishers to “see where we go from here,” said Cmdr. Darryn James, a Pentagon spokesman.
The goal, James said, is to put something into production and to “get a power pack to the warfighter.”
The teams, which all employed fuel cell or battery technologies or a combination of the two, won $1 million, $500,000 and $250,000, respectively.
Article: http://www.militarytimes.com/news/2008/10/military_wearablepower_102008w/