Ultralife to showcase batteries and comms at DSEI
Image courtesy Ultralife
The global company - which acquired Staffordshire based Accutronics Ltd in 2016 - will be showcasing a range of cutting-edge products designed specifically to address power and communication challenges on the battlefield.
Over the past 20 years, Ultralife has been continuously developing innovative portable power solutions for the military (often in conjunction with the government) to reduce weight on the soldier without compromising on performance. One such scheme was the Land Warrior program, which addressed the problem of soldiers having to pack and carry separate batteries for each electronic device. For any one mission, soldiers would typically carry around 15 to 20lbs (6.80kg to 9.07kg) of batteries. Therefore, Ultralife designed the conformal, wearable battery (UBBL35) that can power multiple devices simultaneously and weighs just 2.1lbs (0.96kg).
The 108Wh conformal battery will be on display at Ultralife’s stand H8-100 in the USA Zone, alongside the URB0023 battery that was designed for soldiers who need over 90x greater energy than can be provided by a packable battery. The URB0023 can be stacked up to ten units high to produce 10kwhr of energy but is still one-man moveable at 35lb. Not only is the battery ruggedised for field use, it also has rubber edges for ease of transport in a military vehicle.
When it comes to communication challenges, over the last century, loss of radio signal has been a major threat to the success of military operations across the globe and occurs when a soldier enters an area with no coverage (known as dead spots). When this happens, soldiers often try to increase the coverage range of the radio, so that it can communicate with devices outside of the dead spot.
The problem is that standard 5-watt handheld military radios have a limited operating range of around eight to ten kilometres, depending on the ground and frequency they are operating on. Therefore, amplifiers (such as Ultralife’s A-320V3A, which can be seen at DSEI) can be attached to the radio to boost this distance by up to three times by increasing the wattage to 20.
If this still fails to get the radio out of the dead spot, an alternative option is to change the antenna that is being used. This can be done by connecting an LNA adapter (such as Ultralife’s A-320DPA, which will also be on display at DSEI) to the amplifier. These adapters allow soldiers to switch between a 30-108Mhz antenna and a 90-512Mhz antenna without having to remove one of them, as this is time consuming and risks losing one.
“These are only a few examples of power and communication challenges that Ultralife is helping the military to solve,” said Robert Brown, Marketing Executive at Ultralife. “In addition to these pre-engineered products, we also manufacture custom solutions because the next-generation of military devices may have unique requirements that are not met by products currently on the market. Therefore, we invite anyone who is experiencing a problem to come and speak with us at the show in London. Even if you are not having any issues, you can still take the opportunity to see our plethora of products in person, including non-rechargeable and rechargeable batteries, power supplies, chargers, amplifiers, radio mounts and more."
