Flexible Air Force Self-Sufficient Tent Technology

To address the Air Force need for an innovative integrated energy system to support airmen’s environmental and electric power needs when deployed to remote BEAR (Basic Expeditionary Airfield Resources) tent city bases, Physical Optics Corporation (POC) proposes to develop a new Flexible Air Force Solar Self-Sufficient Tent (FASST) and a low-cost production process to manufacture it. The proposed system is based on a hybrid of flexible highly efficient plastic photovoltaic solar (Flex-HEPPS) panels and flexible thermoelectric generators (Flex-TEG). This innovation and integrated design incorporating hybrid energy sources will enable the system to generate >10 kW for a 25 ft. by 75 ft. tent. In Phase I POC will demonstrate the feasibility of FASST by fabricating and testing prototype flexible solar photovoltaic and thermoelectric generator foils and fibers that could be incorporated into tent fabric as a limited-scale demonstration of the FASST concept and manufacturing process. In Phase II we plan to refine the FASST design and develop a draft design for full-scale manufacturing equipment that will reduce tent energy generation cost significantly.