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A Wave-powered Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB) for Submarine Deployment
Navy SBIR FY2010.1
| Sol No.: |
Navy SBIR FY2010.1 |
| Topic No.: |
N101-049 |
| Topic Title: |
A Wave-powered Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB) for Submarine Deployment |
| Proposal No.: |
N101-049-1044 |
| Firm: |
Trex Enterprises Corporation
10455 Pacific Center Court
San Diego, California 92121-4339 |
| Contact: |
Deanelle Symonds |
| Phone: |
(808) 442-7032 |
| Web Site: |
www.trexenterprises.com |
| Abstract: |
Emergency position indicating radio beacons currently have very short opeveration lifetimes (≤48hrs) due to the limited onboard battery power. The ability to harvest ocean energy could greatly enhance the operational lifetime of EPIRB, and hence increase the probability of rapid search, rescue and recovery of crew and equipment. Trex Enterprises, teaming with Raytheon Network Centric Systems, proposes to develop a self-powered EPIRBfor submarine deployment. The energy capture mechanism will employ a miniaturized version of Trex's proven wave energy harvesting technology and will be capable of efficiently generating 10-15W, even at low sea states. The harvested energy will be utilized to directly power a transmitter that relays a situation report and current GPS location to rescue commands at 30-minute intervals. Excess power will be stored in an onboard rechargeable battery to assure uninterrupted operations even in the lowest sea state. To assure full compliance with beacon data transmission requirements, Trex plans to team with Raytheon NCS, a world leader in military communications systems. Under Phase 1, we will complete the concept engineering and system engineering and under Phase II , we will build, test and deliver 2 fully-functional EPIRB prototypes to NAVSEA. |
| Benefits: |
The development of a self-powered beacon could be used worldwide for all maritime, aircraft, and civilian (commercial shipping and recreational boating) purposes where an emergency positioning beacon would be desired or utilized. The self-powering capability can greatly augment the system longevity (3-7 fold improvement from conventional systems) and the system lifetime will no longer be limited by a fixed onboard power supply. The ability to generate and store excess power (up to 150% more than required to support the peak power requirements of the system) is highly desirable, since it insures uninterrupted operation. It also now enables increased transmission periods or duty cycles (i.e. transmission at every 15 minutes or longer transmission reports). Developing miniaturized, regenerative power supplies have wide application to other sea-going applications that utilize ocean instrumentation or communication electronics, such as incorporation into A-size sono-buoys or oceanographic drifter buoys. The simplicity and modularity of the wave energy harvesting design can be easily upscaled to meet the power requirements of more complex sea-going instrumentation or communications networks |
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