Adaptive Expeditionary Micro-hydro Power System (AEMPS)

In Phase I, Dynovas physically demonstrated an Adaptive Expeditionary Micro-hydro Power System (AEMPS) capable of producing 500W – 1500 W power across environments possessing a baseline 1 m/s water velocity at 0.8m depth, and the intervention free adaptability to produce optimized continuous power output over a range of water velocities from 0.5 – 2.5 m/s with minimum depths of > 0.35m. AEMPS provides a method for energy harvesting from any direction with limited to no intervention operation across brackish, fresh, and salt water environments and enables in field repairability and expeditionary manufacturability through novel design of critical path components and use of line replaceable parts/units. The hydrokinetic system adapts to various water velocities, water depths, and debris risks to provide continuous operation and mitigates performance degradation or catastrophic failure risks (unsafe or excessive water velocities, debris fouling, object contact at depth etc.) through adjusting the hydrokinetic turbine’s level of insertion in conjunction with novel turbine architectures to enable intervention free debris shedding capabilities. AEMPS effectively provides a modular and scalable self-sustaining power generation platform to produce 24VDC output (MIL-STD-1275D) across interconnectable units to produce power in excess of 500–1500W. The expeditionary hydrokinetic power generation system developed is capable of transport,  deployment, and retrieval by 1 or 2 persons in under 30 minutes across the array of deployment environments (rocky shores, sand, dense vegetation-lined shores, ledges, etc.). AEMPS packages a 534W+ continuous power generation system within a 1m3 system transport volume that is under 86lbs to enable transportability across lightweight and ultra-lightweight vehicles in four (4) quick deployable units. The units utilize a ruggedized pop-up framework structure and inflatable pontoon design to meet operation requirements across all Marine Corps operating environments (ref. MIL-STD-810). The structural platform houses a vertically translating and locking hydrokinetic turbine and closed-loop sensor array to avoid debris hazards and provide intervention free operation using a surface-piercing vertical crossflow turbine architecture to extract power from various littoral zones (river, stream, tidal). Units can be deployed in single format or multi-unit across an array of shoreline and littoral region bathymetries, and be transported via existing expeditionary vehicles including Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs), Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTVs), and Ultra-Light Tactical Vehicle (ULTVs).