In order to ensure their own leadership capability, sustainability, supportability, mobility, or survivability, modern armed forces are becoming increasingly dependent upon having a reliable supply of electrical energy. Consequently, electrochemical power sources are becoming increasingly important as a means to guarantee this reliable power supply. As this concerns quite a broad field of applications, the potential solutions using electrochemical power sources are also quite different. This article focuses on one specific sector, that of portable applications. . | Military Batteries and Fuel Cells C Cremers J Tubke and M Krausa Fraunhofer-Institute for Chemical Technology Pfinztal Germany 2009 Elsevier . All rights reserved. Introduction In order to ensure their own leadership capability sustainability supportability mobility or survivability modern armed forces are becoming increasingly dependent upon having a reliable supply of electrical energy. Consequently electrochemical power sources are becoming increasingly important as a means to guarantee this reliable power supply. As this concerns quite a broad field of applications the potential solutions using electrochemical power sources are also quite different. This article focuses on one specific sector that of portable applications. In fact most nonportable applications such as stationary power supply for military bases in the form of power generation or backup power or mobile power supply for traction of military land sea or air vehicles are not very different from corresponding civil applications so the reader should have a first insight into these topics by reading chapters related to civil applications. Still the portable applications discussed here cover a broad range of energy and power demands starting from a few watts over long periods of time for remote sensors to about 1 kW for portable rechargers for batteries used by entire squads. Also the duration over which the electrical energy needs to be supplied varies and therefore the required energy content or density of the electrochemical power source also varies. Finally in many applications the power demands vary with time so that no single type of power source is fully suitable but hybrid solutions combining different types of power sources will be required. Such hybrid solutions may end up in energy networks worn by the soldier allowing harvesting of energy from any power source that might be available and to dedicate power to whichever appliance is in need of it. Batteries General Considerations Batteries
