Power supply a consistent challenge as troops use more gadgets.

AuthorParsons, Dan
PositionEnergy

LAS VEGAS--U.S. troops have a technological advantage over most enemies. But each new gadget they wield comes with a need for power and, at-times, with a hidden logistical tail.

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While batteries have become much more efficient and energy dense in the past two decades, they have been radically outpaced by devices and the demand for portable power. If over the past 20 years batteries have progressed in capability by a factor of three, electronic devices have leaped forward in computing capability and power consumption by a factor of 20, Michael Manna, vice president of product management for Newark, N.Y.-based Ultralife, told National Defense.

"The problem now is, a lot of the stuff that we carry, that soldiers carry, has advanced much faster than batteries. Everyone is carrying more of these devices, which means more batteries," Manna said. "Those devices do 20 times more than they used to, but they also draw 20 times more power now than they used to."

Army engineers want to provide useful equipment to soldiers without overburdening them or displacing vital supplies, said Deanna Tyler, an electronics engineer with the Army's Communications-Electronics Research, Development and Engineering Center. "We have several programs in place where we are working with industry and academia to achieve that goal."

Those relationships were on display here at Power Sources, an annual exhibition hosted by CERDEC. It is the front line of the ongoing struggle to lessen the logistical and physical burden of battlefield energy. An international assortment of engineers and university professors gathered to share with Army officials their efforts at tackling the issue. Ultralife was one of more than 50 companies represented that make batteries for everything from tactical radios to missile-guidance systems. But many were focused on finding lightweight, efficient ways to meet the exploding energy demands of individual troops.

"As [commercial-off-the-shelf] equipment has become more involved and more of that type of technology is integrated, each system has added a certain battery to the already 12 or 15 dictated military batteries," Manna said. "Now you have a variety of specific batteries being pushed into the supply chain and even more COTS equipment being issued."

In a typical 72-hour mission in Afghanistan, a soldier could carry up to 70 batteries to power his electronic equipment, according to the Army Research Laboratory. Battery weight can represent 20 percent of a soldier's load. An infantry battalion spends more than $150,000 on batteries per year. It is estimated that the Army buys 200,000 custom-designed...

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