Long Endurance Sonobuoy Power System (LESPS)

Available energy for undersea systems is often a limiting system design constraint. Commercial battery capacity is less than desired and certain battery chemistries such as Lithium-based have inherent safety risk. Many cells cannot operate at high pressure and added pressure vessel housing size and bulk make their use impractical. Additionally, fiber optic data transmission from remote sensors can is not practical with the inability to transmit useable energy over fiber. L3 Open Water Power has developed a revolutionary high-energy density pressure tolerant intrinsically safe aluminum-seawater power source particularly suited for undersea power. Based on the aluminum seawater cell design developed under N04-053 Phase II, Open Water will develop a more powerful aluminum alloy to provide requisite power using less volume, with optimized pack voltage output to minimize conversion efficiency losses. Progeny Systems Corporation will develop a complementary secondary battery to meet system peak power demands, integrate the primary and secondary batteries as a sonobuoy self-deploying autonomous long endurance deep ocean power module, and conduct lab and ocean testing to demonstrate power supply performance. Ten sonobuoy long endurance deep ocean power modules will be delivered to the Navy for independent evaluation.