MAN WEARABLE LITHIUM ION POLYMER BATTERIES FOR THE 21ST CENTURY SOLDIER

摘要

The advanced technological capability of the 21st Century soldier calls for advanced high energy battery systems; portability is key. Ultraiife Batteries, Inc. (UBI) has developed a novel rechargeable lithium ion polymer battery system that offers high energy density combined with unique design and safety features. This technology is competitive with commercial prismatic liquid lithium ion technologies and out performs all commercial NiCd or NiMH technologies currently on the market. This high energy, high cycle life, battery technology offers unique opportunities for portable or embedded power sources. Electrode assemblies can be made as thin as 0.5 mm (or 0.020") and be cut to any desired shape. Since the polymeric structure housed in a flexible foil laminate package, these thin cell assemblies are flexible and conformable to almost any geometry. The Ultraiife lithium ion polymer technology has already been adapted to four different military battery applications, described in this paper. These include two standard box battery formats (BB 2890 and BB2847), as well as a custom box battery design based on commercial cells. UBI has also used this technology to its best advantage by producing a thin flexible battery embedded in a wearable vest, thus providing a lighter weight, more uniformly distributed portable power source. Ultraiife can also produce an interchangeable Li/MnO_2 primary battery with the same form factor that can be directly substituted into any of these applications, providing approximately three times the energy for combat use.