A Wave-powered Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB) for Submarine Deployment

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.