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Power Science Technology

DoD Offers $1 Million for Wearable Power Supply 167

Posted by Zonk from the will-also-go-well-with-the-cyborgs-of-2058 dept.
coondoggie writes with a link to a NetworkWorld article about an ongoing prize offered by the Department of Defense. The DoD is looking for very special battery, and they're willing to pay up to a million dollars for it. The battery in question is a 'wearable battery pack', one that will be powerful enough to fuel the soldier of the future but light enough not to burden him. "The DoD says typical soldier going out for a four-day mission carries as much as 40 pounds of batteries and rechargers in his pack and it wants to fix that. The goal is to reduce the weight for the power system that drives radios, night-vision devices, global positioning systems and other combat gear, including a recharging system, to about 2 pounds per day. The DoD is looking to mimic the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency which has experienced successes using contests to attract competitors to develop innovative unmanned vehicles and other objects. Now the Defense Research and Engineering Office is hoping to tap into that same competitive spirit to develop longer-duration, lighter-weight power supplies. Three prizes will be awarded in November 2008: $1 million, $500,000 and $250,000."
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DoD Offers $1 Million for Wearable Power Supply More

DoD Offers $1 Million for Wearable Power Supply

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  • Will the first battery last longer then 14 miles?

  • New Camouflage (Score:5, Funny)

    by Mordok-DestroyerOfWo ( 1000167 ) on Saturday July 07, 2007 @02:05PM (#19781357)
    Pink bunny suit optional

  • In the old days (Score:4, Funny)

    by niceone ( 992278 ) * on Saturday July 07, 2007 @02:06PM (#19781361) Journal
    Soldiers used to just loot their supplies from the civilian population, so I suggest just making all the gear run off AA's. "Throw out your TV remotes and come out with your hands on your heads".

    I'll take the $1m in used twenties thanks.

  • I'd love to lose a few pounds powering a GPS system. (And not via exercise)

  • What a Rip off (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ewhenn ( 647989 ) on Saturday July 07, 2007 @02:11PM (#19781403)
    All they are offering for a batterty that increases storage capacity by 20x per pound is $1 million? Are they fucking serious? Thanks, but no thanks. If I spent all of that money on R&D I'd be expecting a bigger return on investment than a mil. Free market for me.

    Makes me think of Austin powers... 1... million... dollars... mwahahaha.

    • Re:What a Rip off (Score:5, Informative)

      by oo7tushar ( 311912 ) <slash.@tushar.cx> on Saturday July 07, 2007 @02:21PM (#19781487) Homepage
      Think of the $10^6 as some return on the initial R&D. After you've built the battery you will manufacture and then sell it to them and thereby enter into contract. So it's not like 10^6 is all you'll get.

      • Re:What a Rip off (Score:5, Informative)

        by oo7tushar ( 311912 ) <slash.@tushar.cx> on Saturday July 07, 2007 @02:24PM (#19781515) Homepage
        As a follow up:

        Section 6.0 on this page: http://www.dod.mil/ddre/prize/rules_doc.html [dod.mil]

        6.0 INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

        The government claims no rights to the intellectual property of competitor's systems. Any proprietary information disclosed to the government will be protected in accordance with government regulations.

        Future development of the candidate systems will be under separate contracts and subject to government rights clauses agreed to under those contracts.

        Systems will be visible to competitors and media during the bench test and field trial. Competitors concerned about proprietary information should ensure no proprietary information can be ascertained from a casual viewing of the system.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by cerelib ( 903469 )
        Because we all know that is how it worked with the Jeep [wikipedia.org].
      • So it's not like 10^6 is all you'll get.

        Yes, it probably is all that you would get. The United States Government has a long history of seizing patents which they claim are vital to the national security interests of the United States. They usually pay the inventor some pittance sum, swear him to secrecy, and politely suggest that he get lost...perhaps not so politely if he doesn't take the hint the first time. Of course, this eliminates any chance that the inventor and his backers might have had at a ma

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by TubeSteak ( 669689 )

      If I spent all of that money on R&D I'd be expecting a bigger return on investment than a mil. Free market for me.

      $1 Million is the prize for submitting something that works.

      The military wouldn't be putting out a prize if they didn't expect to buy these suckers afterwards. Thus, the real money is in the not-so-free market of military contracting.

      If you know anything about military contracting, it can be the proverbial pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Or it can be a huge waste of time and money whe

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Ironsides ( 739422 )
        I can see a lot more people than the DoD being interested in this technology if it gets developed. Think about it, if the batteries are rechargeable, how useful this could be in cars.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by bigtangringo ( 800328 )

      The first X PRIZE competition, the Ansari X PRIZE for Suborbital Spaceflight, successfully challenged teams to build private spaceships to open the space frontier. Burt Rutan, financed by Microsoft founder Paul Allen, won the Ansari X PRIZE on Oct. 4th, 2004. As a result, $10 million was awarded to the winner, but more than $100 million was invested in new technologies in pursuit of the prize. Today, Sir Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos and others are actively creating a personal spaceflight industry.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-Prize#Ansari_X_PRIZ E [wikipedia.org]

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by abradsn ( 542213 )
        The guy that funded the prize, had also given money to the company that won (before they won -- meaning for R&D). That's not a real contest. That's a tax write off.

        • The guy that funded the prize, had also given money to the company that won (before they won -- meaning for R&D). That's not a real contest. That's a tax write off.

          I'd suggest taking a closer look at the guy [wikipedia.org] that funded the prize.

    • No.

      They mean that they want a battery that weighs no more than 2 pounds per full day's worth of energy storage, given a soldier's normal power consumption. A 40-pound battery set will last a soldier a lot longer than one day. I'm not in the military, but I'm sure there's someone around here who's been on active duty recently and can tell us about how long their batteries will last without recharging.

      • The DoD says typical soldier going out for a four-day mission carries as much as 40 pounds of batteries and rechargers in his pack and it wants to fix that.
        I would guess that ~40lbs of batteries/charger lasts around 4 days. Probably more like 5 or 6 in reality as you wouldn't want to be cutting it that close. Just a guesstimate based on that quote as I'm not in the military and have no experience with this stuff. You wouldn't want it to be power for too much longer than the intended length of the mission

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by NoisySplatter ( 847631 )
        In the military I've never seen such a thing as a "Battery set". All the current devices require different types of batteries, all the way from 123A to the BA5590 [prc68.com]. The BA5590 is used in most field radios and lasts anywhere from 12 to 48 hours depending on how much transmitting you're doing and what power setting you're on. It also happens to weigh 2.25 pounds by itself. The 123A is usually used in flashlights and 2 last about 2.5 hours of continuous use. I don't know how much they weigh, but its about the s
    • This is an area in which any amount of investment in battery research using traditional materials science and chemistry is going to be rapidly overtaken by fallout from nanotechnology research --- and that's under the assumption that MNT research just continues bumping along the bottom without that crucial bootstrapping breakthrough that actually launches MNT assembly.

      The reason is that battery technology will benefit enormously even from somewhat underwhelming "nanoscale materials" development, ie. still b
    • Read more carefully please. It's not 20x, it's 5x. They use 40 lb per 4-day trip and want to reduce it to 2 lb per DAY.
    • The advanced battery people are already building better batteries for the military:

      http://www.sionpower.com/applications/military.htm l [sionpower.com]

       
    • Of long-term interest by the DOD. If the DOD got behind serious battery R&D it could be the beginning of major money to become available for the research. (Wishful thinking).
      It would be nice to see mega funding hopefully in the form of grant money.
      If the DOD does get serious, I hope the fruits (if any) don't get lost to secrecy.

      But it is unlikely it wont get past just being a 'prize' for a technology worth way more than a million bucks...bummer, one can always dream.

    • TFA is wrong here's what DOD wants exactly (Score:4, Informative)

      by goombah99 ( 560566 ) on Saturday July 07, 2007 @03:12PM (#19781935)
      first the TFA is wrong. the goal is to cut the weight by only a factor of 2.
      http://www.dod.mil/ddre/prize/rules_doc.html [dod.mil]

      from the DOD site:
      "Demonstrate a wearable electric power system providing 96 hours of equipment operation at less than half the current weight. The power system should attach to a garment (vest) and provide 20W average electric power for 96 hours with peak power requirements of up to 200W for short periods. All components, including the generation, storage, electronics, and connections must weigh 4kg or less, including the attachment system. The total minimum energy required is 1920 W-hr (20W * 96hr)."

      The call is incredibly poorly worded but it appears the current weight is 9Kg (about 20 pound, not the 40 pounds states in the article linked to)

      1920 W-hr is about 6 MJoules and if we assume that means 4.5 KG then that's 1.5MJ/Kg.

      currently Mg-hydride (with Li) gets over 8Mj/Kg. So you could win this contest right now using those, assuming the pulse-power requirments are achievable.
      http://www.energyadvocate.com/fw64.htm [energyadvocate.com]

        to put this in perspective, as to what is ultimately possible to achieve in a quasi theoretical limit: Gasoline holds about 44 Mjoules / Kg. So a perfect electrical conversion from gasoline would be only 5 fold more than what is available now.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Lumpy ( 12016 )
      Nope, just not paying attention.

      Lithium Polymer batteries give that storage they are after. I have one the size of a Razr cellphone battery that will run a GPS an incredibly long time (8600mah compared to the Liion pack of same size that is 2400mah) I adapted it from the RC aircraft out there that are micro sized for indoor flying.

      Problem = Lithium Polimer batteries are insanely expensive, mine cost me $35.00 for the tiny pack I have. Second if the charger and battery are not used properly you get 3-4 cha

  • obvious (Score:4, Funny)

    by Jeek Elemental ( 976426 ) on Saturday July 07, 2007 @02:14PM (#19781417)
    the obvious solution here is laser. Each soldier is tethered by laser to a big, mobile generator. A collector on the back of each soldier, in the middle of a bullseye for convenience, converts the laser energy to the required electrical voltage.

  • *Waves white flag and shouts to enemy (Score:4, Funny)

    by Timesprout ( 579035 ) on Saturday July 07, 2007 @02:19PM (#19781469)
    Temporary cease fire!! We are changing the batteries in our night vision goggles and we can't see anything. Hostilities will recommence in 2 mins. Also our GPS is down so if you could tell us where we are exactly we can call in an airstrike, thanks.
  • So is this proof of

    1. Aliens never have landed here in the first place
    2. The DoD not being able to figure out how to work that mini-fusion reactor
    3. Aliens being so advanced that they use cats and bread for their propulsion systems ...
    4. DoD being really naive, thinking someone, out there, have the information to do 5x better than current tech and not having patented it ..... and willing to sell it for a mere $1000000?

    Hmm.

    • DoD being really naive, thinking someone, out there, have the information to do 5x better than current tech and not having patented it ..... and willing to sell it for a mere $1000000?

      Not naive. Hopeful that citizen inventors with their eye on a tough challange will surprise everyone. I think most on this board kinda like that sort of hope. derail: when I was a kid I read a sci-fi story about a film the army took of an anti-grav device that was accidentally destroyed. They showed the film to a select group of scientists and challenged them to duplicate the device and they did. The film was an army hoax to motivate the scientists who believed that "if someone already did it, we can t

    • They do have a Alien mini-fusion reactor but they don't want to loss them in the battle field or they are being used for the stargate
  • I win [slashdot.org]!

    • Unfortunately, as you probably noticed, said generator only generates power on the order of microwatts. Definitely not enough to power lots of military equipment.

      The obvious solution is this [slashdot.org].

  • increase the energy density by a factor of twenty ... and then put a bullet or a bayonet through it.

    I don't want to be anywhere near the grunt that gets hit wearing one of those things, and they'd better damn well specify in any production contracts that Sony is not to be an alternate source.

  • Efforts to reduce battery size and weight will no doubt help electric vehicles.

    I recently purchased an electric scooter (evt 4000e) and the range is limited to about 30 miles..if the thing could carry more batteries, I bet the range could be dramatically increased.

  • seems to me they should be working on power consumption of the equipment they carry. I realize the radio equipment will eat up a good bit of battery power-- but if my nintendo wii can run on 18 watts i'm sure the 'computer things' they carry can operate on that or less.

    • if my nintendo wii can run on 18 watts i'm sure the 'computer things' they carry can operate on that or less.
      And I'm sure you're neither an electrical engineer nor a soldier. I am nearly the former, and formerly the latter. We don't carry "computer things" in the Army. We carry radios, image intensification night vision systems, and laser designators. All those tasks require significantly more power than your little Wii.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by SolusSD ( 680489 )
        'computer things' is a reference to something you've never seen, obviously.. also-- i am an electrical engineer. bite me.
      • No, they don't.

        The laser pointers probably do not use a lot of power. Even big, clumsy stuff like
        http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/gro und/an-peq1.htm [globalsecurity.org]
        But not every soldier carries this type of equipment with them. These days, the army doesn't even use laser markers that much anymore so this is a bad example (most is GPS stuff, right?)

        Radios do not use a lot of power either, unless the Army uses WWII stuff. Even satellite stuff doesn't use a lot of power.

        Night vision goggles do no

  • Quick! Notify Sony! (Score:4, Funny)

    by r_jensen11 ( 598210 ) on Saturday July 07, 2007 @02:39PM (#19781665)
    As a nice benefit, they know what to do if they run out of grenades.

  • I guess they're broke. (Score:3, Informative)

    by tinrobot ( 314936 ) on Saturday July 07, 2007 @02:41PM (#19781673)
    A million bucks really isn't that much when it comes to something like this. Why are they doing it on the cheap?

    I guess they spent all our money on Iraq. Almost a trillion dollars worth of it.
  • Does covering yourself in explosives count as a power supply? Because the Iraqis are doing it. Is this a technology that the US feels it is lagging in, and wishes to catch up?
  • 1. Get a computer PSU
    2. Get a power cord to plug into it
    3. Tie the PSU around your waist using the power cord, just like a belt. One side plugged into the PSU (for fast plug-and-play if needed) and the other one side goes around your waist with at the end a knot around the start.
    4. ?!?
    5. Profit! :D

  • Unmentioned Requirement (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nick_davison ( 217681 ) on Saturday July 07, 2007 @02:46PM (#19781727)
    As the kid in Australia who tried to fix his laundered iPod, put a screwdriver through the lithium ion battery pack and took a flamethrower to the face discovered... Size/weight vs. capacity isn't the only factor for a battery in rough environments.

    White phosphorous grenades are harsh because you have to dig the burning fragments out of your unanesthetized buddy before they burn any deeper through his flesh. Do you really want to be in an environment where the first round through your battery pack not only leaves you with a bullet inside you but also sets you on fire/douses you with acid. And that's just considering getting shot - how many troops will continue to carry something that gets a reputation for setting them on fire if they bang it wrongly getting in and out of a hummer. No one likes a burning feeling from their hummer.

    It's much like the much discussed "Why do DoD products cost the government 10-100x what the equivalent consumer grade one does? Why not just by consumer models and save cash plus get it in to the field faster?" Tolerances and what happens when those tolerances fail may well be that answer.

    • Re:Unmentioned Requirement (Score:4, Informative)

      by Dachannien ( 617929 ) on Saturday July 07, 2007 @02:52PM (#19781777)
      Very true. The standard-issue GPS unit a few years back was probably about twenty times (by volume, silly) as big as a consumer-grade unit. Granted, it's designed to be a lot better at picking up satellites, but a lot of that volume difference was pure ruggedization.

      • Re:Unmentioned Requirement (Score:5, Interesting)

        by nick_davison ( 217681 ) on Saturday July 07, 2007 @04:12PM (#19782421)
        I actually have experience of Navy GPS units, courtesy of a retired senior chief father in law who built the things for the Navy as a civilian contractor.

        Compared to a little pocket sized GPS unit, these things were huge. Their dimensions were actually constrained by one very simple requirement: They had to fit the standard ammo tin as the Navy had a butt load of storage that was designed to fit exactly that. It also had to have standardized power connectors, standardized venting connectors, etc. The extra ruggedization was less of an issue for the Navy compared to say the Army but they still had to handle being tossed on to ships buy guys who didn't really care too much about what it was they were moving, they just had to move it fast. It seemed ridiculous at first, to have such a huge box and pay so much extra for it - until you realize that the Navy would much rather than than have to search for a nice ergonomic unit that was small enough to roll off and get lost when they really needed it plus had turned out to have overheated and had a charger that kept blowing out on ship's electricity.

        Illustrating much the same point, his company laid him and the other retired Navy guys off a few months later and replaced them with a bunch of freshly minted Master's degrees as they were "clearly" better. A month later the genius who made that call got fired. Yes, a Master's degree in all of the latest techs is very nice. It's completely useless when you have someone who gets lost on ships, who gets their car stopped every time they drive on base vs. the retired E-8 who gets a salute and waved straight through, and someone who pisses off the guys they have no idea how to speak to and thus gets absolutely no help whenever something needs doing. Sure, they designed great products back in the head office but the moment they delivered what the Navy "should" want rather than what it "did" want, they suddenly found it wasn't such a smart idea.

        It's ironic: Anyone who's worked in IT for any length of time has seen that drawing [monolithic.com] of the swing requested by the marketing team, ordered by sales, designed by engineering, etc. And yet, every time DoD contracts get discussed, the supposedly experienced Slashdot crowd always has someone who says, "Consumer grade is cheaper, smaller and therefore better."

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by anubi ( 640541 )
          I understand well your bitterness of layoff.

          Same thing happened at the aerospace contractor I worked for.

          The big corporation who bought us subsequently "executized" us, and "re-engineered" the company, basically re-staffing it, then quickly sold the whole shebang to yet another major aircraft manufacturer before the shit hit the fan.

          The guys who had actually "done it" hit the streets, replaced by freshly minted students who had a piece of paper.

          Now, I realize a lot of us, me included, were rather "set

        • the retired E-8 who gets a salute and waved straight through

          Enlisted sailors are saluted? I thought salutes were reserved for officers.

          • Enlisted sailors are saluted? I thought salutes were reserved for officers.

            I honestly don't know the system that well but I think you're confusing Enlisted with Commissioned. In most branches of the U.S. military, an E-5 and above is some flavor of Sergeant and thus a Non Commissioned Officer. The Navy uses the term Petty Officer to denote its NCO equivalents and starts them at E-4, one grade earlier than the other branches:

            E-4: Petty Officer Third Class
            E-5: Petty Officer Second Class
            E-6: Petty Officer First Class
            E-7: Chief Petty Officer
            E-8: Senior Chief Petty Officer
            E-9: Master

    • "No one likes a burning feeling from their hummer."

      Nice. Subtle but relevant to your discussion. I give it a 9

    • Re: (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      No one likes a burning feeling from their hummer.

      They're HMMWVs. (High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle, and there are about a dozen designations for it, the most common being the M998 and M1025.) Or even Humvee, if you don't like the acronym. The HMMWV is a versatile military truck that can carry a big crew and plenty of cargo, armor and firepower over rough terrain whereas the Hummer is just a butt ugly, gas guzzling piece of shit.

      • whereas the Hummer is just a butt ugly, gas guzzling piece of shit

        ...based on the HMMWV design, until the brand-name was appropriated for smaller, more fuel-efficient SUV's.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by vertinox ( 846076 )
      Do you really want to be in an environment where the first round through your battery pack not only leaves you with a bullet inside you but also sets you on fire/douses you with acid.

      Did you not read the warning label?

      "WARNING: Do not use battery in lieu of body armor. Do not insert battery in mouth. Do not wear battery under body armor. Do not leave battery in direct sunlight. Do no expose batter to direct gunfire. May result in injury or death!"
  • http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/ 05/1521217 [slashdot.org] Yeah Yeah I know it's someone else's work, but didn't Bill Gates get rich the same way?
  • And as a bonus, they can also serve as self-destruct mechanisms.
  • Could one design a small, well-shielded radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RITEG) that'll fulfill the specs? It could put out nearly constant power for 100 years or so. Not sure if it can be made to be under 1kg AND put out a decent amount of power (and be well shielded) though.


    -b.

    • Contest rules so no radio nucleotides

    • RTGs are very heavy power points -- currently about 3...5W per kg. 20W means you've used up your mass margin before you've put even marginal shielding, support etc on it. And then there's the need to go to 200 for short periods which would require another additional battery on to of that. In the end, RTGs are great for things like space craft that have no real choice (at least the ones going away from the sun). The Voyagers run off RTGs - for over 30 years now.

      But that opens a different question -- isn't

  • A next-generation battery that is safe and has 20x the energy density/mass would obviously revolutionize laptops. The desired spec is 4 kg and 1920 W-hr, with 5 min. bursts of 200 W. By comparison, 2 kg of laptop batteries hold ~100 W-hr and burst to ~100 W.

    The real trick is to use adapt this technology to electric cars. The Tesla Roadster [wikipedia.org] uses the same Li-ion tech as in laptops currently, so dropping the mass or extending the range by 20x would be fantastic. Moreover, the Tesla's battery pack can peak

  • Very weather dependent (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bytesex ( 112972 ) on Saturday July 07, 2007 @03:29PM (#19782087) Homepage
    1920 watthour in 4kg; I have no idea whether it's doable, but I do know that every battery suffers greatly when the temperature changes. They'll probably test this in Arizona, and come up really, really short when it'll be properly needed in Alaska. But that's just the cynic in me.

  • Batteries won't cut it. (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    You might as well ask Detroit for a 500 MPG Humvee and offer a $1,000,000 prize. The only thing with that potential is possibly a fuel cell. There's the puncture issue with gas cylinders but as others pointed out Lithium batteries aren't exactly safe. There's also less of a disposable hazzard with spent gas cylinders than batteries. It's really the only solution and the military will accept a $5,000 portable battery pack that a consumer would want to pay $100 for the same pack. It could help bring costs dow
  • Only it won't be the battery getting slimmed down.

    Notice that we're talking about TWO entities charged with what appears to be the same mission:

    1. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
    2. Defense Research and Engineering Office

    Why aren't these entities combined?
  • The LEES ultracapacitor project would win this hands down.

  • One of the most common military batteries is the BA 5590 [defense-update.com], a lithium/sulfur dioxide primary battery with a good combat record over fifteen years. 24VDC at 200mA for 28 hours, or 135 watt-hours in a 1 Kg package. There's an upgrade to lithium manganese dioxide in the same form factor [ulbi.com], for 333 watt-hours. The original article says that the competition requires a battery with 1290 watt-hours in a 4Kg package, or 323 watt-hours per kilogram. That's where the primary batteries are now. So this isn't a big a

  • Some plastic battery boxes a roll of duct tape and cha-ching, ba-by! One meeeeelllion dollars!

  • Cover him with high efficiency solar cells.
  • Would be cool if someone figures out how to make a usable personal atomic battery, akin to Asimov's Foundation...
  • Not knowing a thing about anything in question; this is what I would do:

    The Dune Fremen suits come to mind;

    Have the movement and breathing of the soldiers provide the power input. Crystals (quartz and others?) emit electricity when pressure is applied so set them up at all the joints.

  • Typical US government, waste energy instead of offering prizes on making gear more energy efficient and smaller so the soldier wouldn't need to carry so much to begin with and would thus be less encumbered.
  • What about solar and kinetic motion based re-charging in the field? How about non-traditional energy storage options such as ultraCapacitors? How about electronic devices that are more energy efficient? I'll leave it to our other SlashDot'ers to fill everyone else in on all of the emerging technology out there that is not just about light weight batteries.

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