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25 Feb 14. Revision Military, one of the world’s leaders in protective soldier solutions, has acquired Panacis, an Ottawa based company producing Lithium ion rechargeable energy storage systems. This move expands the company’s capabilities by adding power management to its portfolio of integrated technologies. Advanced, electronic battlefield equipment such as networked radios, night-vision systems, GPS, smart phones and laptops, increases situational awareness and capability within smaller units. However, it comes with the challenge of sustaining power for these devices, ideally without the weight and complexity that numerous types of batteries present.
“The opportunity for an integrated power management system that provides flexible storage and power management that can be easily adapted to a wide range of mission scenarios is extensive”, said Alex Hooper, vice president global sales for Revision. “We are pleased to add power management – the ability to store, deliver, harvest, and share energy – to our roster of technologies in support of fully integrating electronic equipment while lessening the battery burden on soldiers”.
Revision has been working collaboratively with Panacis on several projects, including reviewing power support for the “Prowler” Human Augmentation system and development of a conformal battery housed on the helmet developed for Natick under the HEaDS-UP ATO program. This is among a number of other initiatives where next generation energy management is crucial to soldier performance. The acquisition is effective February 21, 2014, and the energy solutions team will continue to operate from Ottawa.
24 Feb 14. Singapore-Israel Cooperation Leads to World’s First Civilian Fuel Cell UAS. Horizon Energy Systems of Singapore has produced an ultra-light fuel cell power system that has led to a new flight duration breakthrough for civilian unmanned aircraft systems. As part of a cooperation between Singapore and Israel, the programme has enabled the start of commercialisation of a first hydrogen fuel cell powered, long endurance civilian UA system able to fly for up to 10 hours at a time, able to cover a much wider area and lowering operational cost for end-users. The first-ever civilian operational UAV to be powered by a fuel cell is the WanderB made by Israeli company BlueBird, a leading manufacturer of mini-UAV systems. The high performance power kit was developed by Singaporean fuel cell company Horizon Energy Systems, and integrated into the UAV by Bluebird in Israel with support from the Singapore Israel Industrial R&D Foundation – SIIRD. The world’s most high-performance fuel cells and novel hydrogen storage systems are designed and manufactured by Horizon Energy Systems (HES), based in
Singapore. HES is part of Horizon Fuel Cell Technologies group – a company that now employs about 120 people and serves clients in the US, Asia and Europe. HES offers a number of standard off-the-shelf solutions and works with leading UAV suppliers on custom developments according to their specific platform configurations and requirements. After several years of unique experience in the sector, Horizon’s ultra-light fuel cell systems have found their match in a specific segment of the UAS spectrum, defined as fixed wing 5kg to 60kg max take-off-weight electric UAS. Compared to the best available batteries, Horizon’s fuel cell systems are much lighter, meaning far more flight endurance than ever before for small battery operated fixed-wing aircraft. At the forefront of technological change in propulsion systems for electric UAS,
Horizon systems have helped set a new FAI world record in 2006 with NASA-backed research teams in the US, and pushed the limit of electric flight with the DLR in Germany around the jet-wing HYFISH platform in 2007. From its labs in Singap