More Details on Wearable Power Prize Winners

At first I could only find the identities of the winners; now there's a lot of information and several press releases available.

DuPont, Smart Fuel Cell AG Win Wearable Power Prize Competition - DuPont News - The lightweight M-25 fuel cell combines DuPont’s direct methanol fuel cell technology with SFC’s commercially proven fuel cell systems, products, and integration expertise. ... The M-25 standard design, when worn by soldiers in the field for extended missions, is up to 80 percent lighter than conventional power sources, yet capable of powering a wide range of soldier equipment, such as digital communication and navigation equipment.

DuPont takes Wearable Power Prize- Riverside Press-Enterprise - This includes a video and pictures. It explains the military and civilian (eg: camping) business opportuntities for lower-weight wearable power systems. How much financial investment did the prize encourage?

Their project, including plane fare to California, cost them about $10,000 they said.

Other teams spent $100,000 or more on their prototypes. DuPont's Baunchalk wouldn't say what his team had spent other than it was "significant." He would not confirm whether the million-dollar prize would cover the investment or not.
...
"We've lost, in this nation, a little bit of the science and engineering edge, Shaffer said. "We have a tremendous capacity for innovation. It's this kind of competition that creates the leap forward."

Direct-methanol fuel cell takes DoD prize - EE Times

Adaptive Materials Places 2nd, Wins $500,000 in Department of Defense Research & Engineering Prize - Adaptive Materials News - Adaptive Materials, the leading manufacturer of solid oxide fuel cells, recently placed second among 47 competitors in the Department of Defense Research & Engineering’s Prize. The company’s lightweight fuel cells rose to the challenge, outperforming leading battery and fuel cell companies to help the company capture the competition’s $500,000 second prize.

The public relations power of prize competitions is noted: “Prior to the Prize competition, awareness of Adaptive Materials’ propane-powered solid oxide fuel cells was limited to industry experts, so it’s an exciting win that will build visibility and credibility for technology that a lot of people didn’t even know exists.

The winners always have to figure out what to do with the prize money. Here's one way: Adaptive Materials will share $30,000 of its Prize with all employees. The funds will be awarded as a performance bonus to all Adaptive Materials’ employees with the company on August 31, 2008.

SFC Fuel Cells Wins Dept. of Defense “Wearable Power Competition” - Earth2Tech - SFC was part of 2 of the 3 winning entries.

Wearable Power Prize Won

DDR&E Wearable Power Prize Winners - $1.75M in prizes (i.e. all it) was won; this shows the first, second, and third place winners.

Wearable Power Competition Finals Today

Aviation Week blog posts tagged with "Wearable Power Prize" - team interviews, etc

Rayovac Enters Portable Power Pack in DoD Wearable Power Prize Competition - Flashlight News

Competition: the Wearable Power System - Military.com - October 3

list of 48 finalists (PDF) - announced September 15

Final 20 Teams Compete For DoD $1M Wearable Power Prize - Defense-Aerospace.com - September 20: University of Maine students and brothers Chris and Brandon Look were one of 169 original entries to make it to the final testing round. “Our dad is an engineer and owns a construction company, so we’ve always been interested in anything mechanical,” said Brandon, who is a volunteer firefighter. “Chris serves in the Army National Guard, so in a sense, we’re both ground pounders. We know from experience what might benefit the guys in the field.”

list of 20 finalists

Military Prize Roundup - September 22, 2008

The Wearable Power Prize competition check-in starts today at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms, CA. The whole event is on until October 4. Here's the full schedule for the final event. Some highlights:

Oct. 3, 2008: Kids’ Day
Area schools have been invited to bring classes for a day of learning about the WPP objectives and the science and technology behind them. In addition, the students will tour the competition site and exhibits from competitors, major DoD laboratories, and the military service branches.

Oct. 4, 2008: Prize Day
0700: Opening Ceremony featuring the U.S. Marine Corps Band
0800 – 1500: Technology Showcase opens
0900 – 1300: WPP Field Test / Power Wear-Off
1500: Prize ceremony
1500: Technology Showcase closes

Meanwhile, Singapore's TechX Challenge final event was September 21 (yesterday). I didn't see information about the winners yet.

The British MOD's Grand Challenge winners were announced on August 19. The winner was Team Stellar (not the GLXP team) and their SATURN.

Wearable Power Prize Team List Announced

The Department of Defense has release a press release on the teams that have registered and passed the first hurdle of the Wearable Power Prize - submitting a safe fuel and battery chemistry plan. Here's the list of 107 teams. A number of them will be familiar to people interested in space. Others seem to be specialists in batteries, power, embedded systems, or defense contracting. Some scattered examples:

Adaptive Materials, Inc. - Adaptive Materials, Inc (AMI) portable power products deliver on the promise of fuel cells ...

Arkansas Power Electronics International, Inc.

ATK Launch Systems

Lockheed Martin

UltraCell - UltraCell Corporation (Livermore, CA) was founded in 2002 to commercialize an advanced Reformed Methanol Micro Fuel Cell (RMFC) technology invented at the U. S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL).

Wearable Power Prize "Power Wear Off" Date

Cosmic Log notes that the Department of Defense has set a date and location for the Wearable Power Prize event:

The Department of Defense announced today the inaugural $1.75 million Wearable Power Prize competition will be held at the Marine Corps Air-Ground Combat Center (MCAGCC), Twentynine Palms, Calif., Sept.22 until Oct. 4, 2008.

The Wearable Power Prize Competition was first announced in Jul. 2007. Its 13-day capstone event culminates on Oct 4 at MCAGCC with a “Power Wear Off” competition. The Wearable Power Prize competition gathers and tests wearable power-generating methods and techniques. The goal is to reduce the weight of power systems that warfighters carry to operate their radios, navigation, weapons, and other gear. Competitors will demonstrate wearable systems that can power military equipment for 96 hours, but that weigh less than half the current battery load.

There's more from Network World.

Wearable Power Prize Registration Closed

Today is the registration deadline for teams trying to win the Wearable Power Prize.

Wearable Power Prize Registration Approaches

The registration start date for the Wearable Power Prize is October 29; there are just a few days to go. The deadline is November 30.

This slide presentation on the prize has a schedule for the whole competition on page 18 of the 53 slide package.

Wearable Power Prize Information Forum and More

From the Department of Defense Research & Engineering web site, I noticed a page about an Information Forum for the Wearable Power Prize. The Forum is on Friday, Sept 21, in D.C. (see the link above for the full details). As with most such prize competitions, they're not looking for just the traditional big defense contractors - they want to see these, plus other businesses, inventors, academic representatives, and so on.

Registration for the competition is from October 8 to November 30.

I've already seen news about one potential competitor. In this press release, fuel cell vendor Neah Power Systems announces its intention to compete.

Ideas-to-Action posts on the Wearable Power Prize, and how businesses could use a similar model to encourage the innovations they need in other ways than traditional in-house R&D projects.

War is Boring offers a summary of the prize, as well as a brief discussion of similar efforts.

More on Wearable Power Prize

Aviation Week has more discussion on the Wearable Power Prize. This is based on a blogger phone conference held by Dr. Willaim Rees, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense. Here's the PDF transcript of the conference call, which among other things emphasizes that this is just the first prize competition they plan to hold. The audio version is here.

DOD Wearable Power System Prize

Cosmic Log has an article on a new Wearable Power Prize being offered by the Department of Defense Research and Engineering organization. There are 3 prizes offered: $1M for first place, $500K for 2nd place, and $250K for 3rd place. More prizes are expected to be announced later. I just had a chance to glance at this one, so I'll probably have more comments later.

Update July 21: The goal of the prize is to produce a light (4 kg or less) power source that can operate continuously for 96 hours with 20 watts output average, and 200 watts peak output. The goal is to produce a light power source that can be used by troops to power GPS systems, radios, etc. The lightest system that meets the other requirements wins. In case of ties, "wearability" criteria are tie-breakers.

Even though the prize has just been announced, there is already a spot to link to competing teams' sites, which is a good idea. There is also "reserved space" for teams for future prize competitions.

I wonder how much the wearable power source would benefit space applications? I suspect that astronauts would also find a light power source to be useful. Light batteries must also be important for robotic missions. In fact, one of the contests that NASA Centennial Challenges was considering was a small Lunar Night Power Source (see the last page of the slides). The Regolith Excavation Challenge also had serious mass and power considerations.

Here's the announcement of the prize, and here's a DoD news article on it. The news article notes that "A typical dismounted troop going out for a four-day mission carries as much as 40 pounds of batteries and rechargers". The prize is for a much lighter set. “Look at what it is that drives success in battle. It’s inevitably a combination of training and your ability to have decision making on your feet,” Rees said. “And that ability to have decision making is directly reduced by your fatigue. The more weight we can take off your back, the better your decision making in battle.” I'd also add that you also have the flexibility to carry something else of value.