High Efficiency Shelter Lighting Utilizing Solid State Illumination Technology

The Army currently uses fluorescent lighting that is large, heavy, extremely inefficient, and expensive to illuminate deployable shelters. Because the light fixtures can't be rolled up with the portable shelter, they must be individually removed and stowed separately for transport, further compounding the logistics problem. Using a combination of commercially available and internally-developed power management technology, SHOT proposes a systems-engineered approach to this lighting problem. Our lighting system is expected to employ commercially available lighting technology that is more energy efficient, reliable and cost effective than traditional lighting systems. Moreover, the system is projected to provide performance superior to incandescent and fluorescent technologies. It also is anticipated to have the flexibility and capability to use multiple energy sources that are commonly available in remote locations and under combat zone conditions. It will be battlefield-ready for multiple shelter applications, and capable of being used in all types of climates and geographic locations. Our end-product is expected to be an integrated solution that is dependable, reliable, and easy to assemble and reconfigure. Our Phase I research effort will enable us to explore and engineer the subsystems, and then begin to integrate those subsystems together to demonstrate the feasibility of our lighting system.