Emerging Power and Energy Technologies for Portable Electronics

December 1, 2008

Naval Research Laboratory

A report discusses data obtained for the Navy's Special Operations Command (SOCOM), which seeks a portable power/energy source capable of providing sufficient power and energy for complex missions at a minimal weight penalty. The report focuses on the specific energy of systems, defining the weight of the power/energy system that must be carried by the soldier.

The study experimentally evaluated the performance of various commercial power sources including batteries and fuel cells under ambient conditions, and did not probe long-term stability and operation or temperature sensitivity. The study assessed the performance of the present battery system, the BA5590 battery. Batteries with only modest improvements in specific energy over the BA5590 have only a small impact on a 72-hour mission at 20W.

This work was done by Karen Swider Lyons of the Naval Research Laboratory.

NRL-0032