DARPA asks University of Maryland for energy harvesting for electric power to drive remote ocean sensors
ARLINGTON, Va. – U.S. military researchers are asking University of Maryland in College Park, Md., to develop energy harvesting techniques from microscopic sea life like dissolved organic matter, phytoplankton, bacteria, and microscopic zooplankton into electric power.
Officials of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in Arlington, Va., announced a $7.8 million contract to University of Maryland late last month for the BioLogical Undersea Energy (BLUE) program.
Self-refueling electric power
BLUE seeks to develop self-refueling electric power generation that enable remote ocean sensors like seabed-mounted sensor and profiling systems to operate far longer than possible by batteries alone.
University of Maryland will demonstrate a persistent, sustainable, low-environmental-impact source of electric power that provides ultralong endurance and high payload capacity to remote ocean sensors, which hold great potential for national security, understanding dynamics of marine environments, and monitoring marine climate change.
Today the vast majority of these systems are powered by batteries, which provide relatively low endurance, and are difficult and expensive to maintain. BLUE, on the other hand, could offer transformative and significant improvements over state-of-the-art batteries and other types of power supplies by enabling high capability and long endurance.
BLUE technologies will self-refuel on input materials, which are readily available in many marine environments; prevent capture of macroscopic living marine organisms; operate while submerged; will be durable, reliable, deployable; operate in diverse locations; operate independently with consistent electrical power production; and have negligible ecological and environmental impact.
Dissolved organic matter
University of Maryland will choose input materials like dissolved organic matter, phytoplankton, and zooplankton as input materials to convert to electrical power. Additional contractors may be selected.
Each performer team will develop two separate system prototypes that self-capture and convert input materials to electrical power while fully submerged without user intervention.
Related: Unmanned vehicle systems: ready for takeoff
This contract provides for deploying an innovative microbial fuel cell system to achieve better than 0.1 kilowatts of continuous power production using marine organic matter as the fuel source.
BLUE power supplies must interface with the marine environment without corrosion and fouling of internal components. The 30-month BLUE program will have a 21-month first phase and a nine-month second phase.
On this contract University of Maryland will do the work in College Park, and Baltimore, Md.; Sugar Land, Texas; Columbus, Ohio; Newark, Del.; Harrisonburg, Va.; Boston; and Washington, D.C., and should be finished by August 2026.
For more information contact University of Maryland online at https://ischool.umd.edu/research/, or DARPA at www.darpa.mil.
John Keller | Editor-in-Chief
John Keller is the Editor-in-Chief, Military & Aerospace Electronics Magazine--provides extensive coverage and analysis of enabling electronics and optoelectronic technologies in military, space and commercial aviation applications. John has been a member of the Military & Aerospace Electronics staff since 1989 and chief editor since 1995.
