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Winning system weighed under 8 pounds and provided 96 hours of run time

New battery technology and fuel cells are being looked to for more than longer battery life and more runtime for your notebook or other gadgets. The U.S. military is looking for improved power systems that are wearable for soldiers in the field.

The Pentagon held a contest with 170 different companies participating. The top prize in the contest was $1 million. The goal of the contest was to find a wearable power system for U.S. soldiers that would meet strict criteria for power output, run time, and weight.

According to MSNBC.com, the Pentagon found a winner for its contest. The winning product was created with joint effort from DuPont and German firm SFC Smart Fuel Cell. The system won the $1 million prize and the power system is already being sold to the U.S. military for limited field use.

The need for the new power system was to reduce the weight of current power systems that supply needed power to soldier's night vision and GPS technologies among other things. Currently soldiers would often have to carry as much as 20 pounds of batteries alone to power needed systems.

Requirements to participate in the contest were for power systems that produced 20W of average power for 96 hours with the ability to meet brief peak demands of 200W and the system could weigh no more than 8.8 pounds (4kg) total. The battery systems competing were attached to a standard military vest for testing.

The winning system from the DuPont venture is called the M-25. MSNBC reports that it won by virtue of being the lightest system at only 3.7621 kg. The second place system was from Adaptive Materials and weighed 3.7901 kg, and the third place system was the Jenny 600S weighing 3.85 kg.

Fuel cell systems for consumer use, like the Medis fuel cell, are capable of producing a mere fraction of the power the winning systems in the Pentagon test produced.

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How much?
By FITCamaro on 10/8/2008 1:00:31 PM , Rating: 1
How much does each system cost? Just wondering when we might see commercial adoption of whatever technology it uses.




RE: How much?
By Moohbear on 10/8/2008 1:22:59 PM , Rating: 3
Even if it's affordable, at 3.7 kg, it's not going to get in any consumer portable device anytime soon. Even for a laptop it's total overkill. Now, if they can make it weight less than 200g and power a notebook for 16 hrs, that's another story.


RE: How much?
By ChronoReverse on 10/8/2008 1:26:15 PM , Rating: 3
96 hours at 20W for 4kg
~=
48 hours at 40W for 4kg
~=
6 hours at 40W for 0.5kg

Using 40W as a typical laptop power draw, 0.5kg as a typical laptop battery mass, 6 hours doesn't seem that special.


RE: How much?
By Oregonian2 on 10/8/2008 3:55:38 PM , Rating: 4
I just looked up a Lenovo Lithium laptop battery. It produces about 63 Watt-hours and weighs about half a kg (and is $140 at the random website I found it at).

The one in the article is 96 * 20 / 8 = 240 for half a kg.

I'd say 240 is a bit better than 63.


RE: How much?
By jlips6 on 10/8/2008 11:03:49 PM , Rating: 2
just a note
this is being made for the military.
these are people who get shot at for a living.
that lenovo battery is made of lithium ions.
Let's put those two together now.
you are wearing a bomb.


RE: How much?
By Oregonian2 on 10/9/2008 2:04:27 PM , Rating: 3
But that's popular wear in the Middle East!

I'm Bad. Sorry, couldn't resist....


RE: How much?
By xzourska on 10/8/2008 11:21:57 PM , Rating: 2
The project is much more complicated than just 20W for 96hours. There is periods where the actual consumption is 200W for 5 minutes followed by 20W for 5 minutes and that alternates many times. Many batteries can do the 20W if that was constant but it has to be able to supply up to 200W and have a total of 1920Wh of energy. Plus if you consider many Lithium Ion batteries are have much less energy density then what you state.


RE: How much?
By theapparition on 10/9/2008 10:09:14 AM , Rating: 2
Your hypothetical laptop would have to have a 240Whr battery. Most large laptops only have 80Whr batteries.

My own 17" laptop, with a 80Whr bat has a run time of around 3-4hrs. Even assuming 4 hrs, that yields a max consumption of 20Watts. Only Laptops with 6hr runtimes are signifigantly smaller netbooks or ultraportables.
So I think you've estimated laptop power. Most typically would run sub 15W.


RE: How much?
By Some1ne on 10/8/2008 3:19:22 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Even for a laptop it's total overkill.


Bull. I would gladly take one for my laptop, if I could get one now. Granted I might not carry it around with me every day, but I certainly would any time I went traveling. 3.7 kg is not a terrible amount of weight to be carrying around, unless you are very much out of shape.


RE: How much?
By mindless1 on 10/8/2008 5:24:23 PM , Rating: 2
Potentially doubling the weight of a laptop is significant. Look at it another way, right now you have the option of carrying an addt'l 3.7 kg worth of battery packs but do you and if not, why not? It can't be the cost since this is military solution is bound to cost an order of magnitude more than a few traditional Li-Ion packs.


RE: How much?
By Some1ne on 10/8/2008 8:01:15 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Look at it another way, right now you have the option of carrying an addt'l 3.7 kg worth of battery packs but do you and if not, why not?


There are a number of reasons:

1. Runtime. The 9-cell battery my laptop currently uses gives about 4 hours of runtime, max. It weighs 0.65 kg. That means at most I could carry a total of 6 of them within the 4 kg weight allowance, and that only gives me 24 hours of runtime as opposed to the 96 hours of the new battery pack.

2. Convenience. Because each battery only lasts ~4 hours, then means I have to swap them out periodically. I can't do that while the laptop is running, or even in standby mode (which is maybe a problem with my specific laptop). I need to either hibernate or completely power down the system in order to swap in a new battery, and I'd much rather not have to do either of those things. With a battery pack that can run for 4 days, I wouldn't ever need to.

3. Practicality. My laptop's current batteries do not hold a charge well over long periods of non-use. That means before a trip I'd have to recharge all 6 batteries. That would be time consuming and annoying. Maybe the new battery pack also loses charge over time, but at least with that there'd only be a single thing I'd have to remember to recharge.

4. Cost. Each spare 9-cell battery costs at least $100, and while the new thing may well be even more costly, there's no way of knowing that until it's made available to consumers in a form factor that is compatible with their laptops. And even if the new thing is very expensive, that's not much of an issue for me, because I can just expense it to the corporate purchasing branch. And it's a lot easier to justify "I need one spare 54-cell battery for my laptop" than it is to justify "I need six spare 9-cell batteries for my laptop" to the corporate purchasing branch, even if the first option costs much more than the second. The way they rationalize expenses is kind of strange.


RE: How much?
By Some1ne on 10/8/2008 8:22:02 PM , Rating: 2
And one other thing that's worth mentioning. Just because the military version delivers a 96 hour runtime at ~4kg, that doesn't mean that the technology can't be scaled down. As another poster mentioned, what they've really done is managed to increase energy density by roughly a factor of 4 over existing solutions, and it would be great to see such technology in battery packs of every size/weight/form factor.

I'd be perfectly happy with a ~1kg battery pack that delivered 24 hours of runtime.


Simpletech
By dflynchimp on 10/8/2008 1:20:43 PM , Rating: 2
What's wrong with putting a large hamster wheel in each park to harness the seemingly inexhaustible energy reserves of the nation's children?




RE: Simpletech
By waltzendless on 10/8/2008 1:31:22 PM , Rating: 5
Except kids these days are only into video games, not running. They would just sit in the hamster wheel and cry about not having a Nintendo. This would lower the morale of the soldiers and also give away their position.


RE: Simpletech
By austinag on 10/8/2008 1:38:55 PM , Rating: 2
Nah... How about a 10' by 10' solar array mounted on top of each solider? That would be the environmentally resposible thing to do.


RE: Simpletech
By Ammohunt on 10/8/2008 2:26:40 PM , Rating: 2
Wind turbine would be better.


RE: Simpletech
By FITCamaro on 10/8/2008 2:30:43 PM , Rating: 2
It would also provide the soldier with shade. :)


RE: Simpletech
By Tsuwamono on 10/20/2008 12:20:55 PM , Rating: 2
you could armor plate it and use it as a shield aswell.


What !?
By Reclaimer77 on 10/8/2008 6:00:05 PM , Rating: 4
What ? No mini ARC reactor placed into a carved out chest plug ?

Crap !




RE: What !?
By jlips6 on 10/8/2008 11:05:24 PM , Rating: 2
thank you for being my hero.


RE: What !?
By FITCamaro on 10/9/2008 7:35:20 AM , Rating: 2
Bought Iron Man on Blu-ray this weekend and watched it last night.


awww