US Army CERDEC: Fuel Cell Testing Update

The Army's Communications and Electronics Research, Development and Engineering Center (CERDEC) Fuel Cell Team, located at Fort Belvoir, VA, is actively investigating fuel cell power sources from milliwatt to kilowatt levels to fit the Army's power needs. Currently, many smaller fuel cell programs in progress at CERDEC use a packaged non-logistic fuel. Soldier and Man portable fuel cells combine the portability of batteries with the use of an external energy-dense fuel to fill the gap in power between batteries and generators. For this reason, CERDEC is actively working to assess the state of technology and attempt to field fuel cell power systems with several programs showing promise in providing reliable, small, and lightweight Soldier power solutions. This presentation will focus specifically on the development updates in the Soldier and Man portable power program areas. Over the past year several fuel cell power systems have been tested in CERDEC facilities.