Atmospheric Intelligence for Hybrid Power Advancements (AIHPA): Volume 5 (AIHPA Testbed)

Author(s):

Gail Vaucher, Sean D’Arcy, Noah Keith, Robert Jane, Michael Lee, and Morris Berman

Abstract:

The ever-increasing number of technologies that future Soldiers will need to power on the battlefield demands strategic forethought. As ARL has been pursuing this issue, an Atmospheric Intelligence for Hybrid Power Advancements (AIHPA) Testbed was developed and fielded. Its success in proving the feasibility and value added in hybridizing power has resulted in two, and soon to be three, testbed units dedicated to battlefield power research. The Testbed units have two major elements: 1) a Power Train (PT), which consists of multiple power resources working in concert to satisfy load requirements, and a 2) Meteorological Measuring Tripod (MMT), which is a suite of environmental sensors whose data enable improved power generation model prediction. An automated whole sky imager (WSI) that was designed and built in-house and fills out the current Testbed design. To ensure consistency between research-grade testbed units, the AIHPA project has elected to document the design in this report.