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Appendix C Selected Findings and Recommendations from Previous National Research Council Reports Related to Power and Energy Sources MEETING THE ENERGY NEEDS OF FUTURE WARRIORS (2004) Recommendation 5. The Army should refine duty-cycle estimates for the Land Warrior suite of electronics so as to enable the development of high-fidelity models incorporating soldier usage patterns and other details of interactions between power sources and soldier electronics. These estimates are essential for developing smart hybrid systems that can react to the environment for the future LW as well as for developing energy-efficient systems to meet unforeseen Army mission requirements. Recommendation 10. The Army should make energy efficiency a first-order design parameter whenever specifying system performance parameters in its contracts. It should provide monetary incentives as needed to reduce power demand in all its procurements for soldier electronics, especially for communications. Recommendation 11. The Army should aim for a future soldier system capable of no more than 2-W average power, 5-W peak power. Achieving this will free the soldier from worries about power shortages on the battlefield and greatly enhance combat effectiveness. Recommendation 12. The Army should develop a modeling capability for soldier equipment that includes power sources and also enables detailed simulation, verification, and analysis of power requirements for given operational parameters. ENERGY-EFFICIENT TECHNOLOGIES FOR THE DISMOUNTED SOLDIER (1997) Recommendation 1a. Army leadership must emphasize the importance of reducing energy demand to achieve energy sufficiency for future dismounted soldiers. Meeting near- and far-term needs will require major changes in Army thinking. Paradigm shifts in energy strategy, system design, and the use of commercial technology are absolutely essential to avert a crisis. The new paradigms must be translated into top-down initiatives. Essential reforms include changes in the following areas: 34
ABBREVIATED VERSION: APPENDIX C 35 ⢠Energy Strategy. The Army must focus on energy consuming systems as well as on energy supplying systems. ⢠System Design for Efficiency. The Army must emphasize system integration at all levels so that the entire system can be optimized for energy efficiency. For example, modular hardware designs with dedicated processors are more energy-efficient than general-purpose computers. And communications architectures must be designed to distribute energy consuming components (sensors and processors) where they can most easily be served by local power sources. ⢠Use of Commercial Technology. Army systems must be closely coupled to the technologies used in commercial products. The Army must be fully capable of incorporating the most recent data-processing and communications technology into its systems. Recommendation 1b. The Army should accelerate the development and insertion of enhancements to the Land Warrior system, focusing on improvements to the computer/radio subsystem, because the estimated power requirements for communications and computing functions in Land Warrior are clearly excessive. Recommendation 1c. The Army Acquisition Executive should make energy efficiency a priority consideration in evaluating contractor performance in future procurements of electronics for the dismounted soldier. Recommendation 2a. To achieve energy sufficiency, the Army should set research objectives that focus on energy-efficient technologies. Energy efficiency is the key to success for the Army After Next. Recommendation 2b. The Army should support use of computer-aided design tools for systems and integrated circuits specifically optimized for low power performance. If the necessary design tools are not available commercially, the Army should support its own development programs, perhaps in conjunction with related DARPA efforts. Army contractors for electronic systems should be required to use energy-optimizing design tools. Recommendation 2c. The Army should support the development of mission- specific software for dismounted soldier systems. General-purpose software is wasteful and not energy-efficient. Recommendation 2d. The Army should support the development and use of low power software, in which each instruction is written or compiled to minimize power requirements. New tools may be required for specific military applications. Recommendation 2e. The Army should use dedicated electronic circuits wherever possible to minimize power requirements. Application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) technology can achieve the efficiencies of custom circuits and hardware and still be cost effective.
36 TOWARD A UNIVERSAL RADIO FREQUENCY SYSTEM FOR SOF Recommendation 2f. The Army should establish and enforce standards of awareness and discipline for energy consumption in dismounted soldier operations. Recommendation 4a. The Army should refine its requirements for high- resolution images and video communications to the minimum necessary to meet battlefield needs. Recommendations 4b. The Army should minimize wireless data transmissions by reducing the time required to convey a given amount of information. Relevant technologies include speech and image compression, database caching, and information science technologies that reduce, eliminate, or automate the energy inefficient natural language (read message) transmissions that are currently used. Recommendation 4c. The Army should adapt the hierarchical network architecture of cellular telephones to create a ''virtual peer-to-peer" network, which would improve the distribution of computational resources while taking advantage of commercial cellular technologies. Recommendation 4d. The Army should modify and synchronize operational doctrine with emerging systems to minimize soldier transmissions. For example, data collection and reduction should be performed as close to the data collector as possible, and computational components should be distributed across the network of soldier communicators. The Army should exploit energy saving communications protocols, such as the protocols used to alert radio receivers to incoming data in pagers and cellular phones. Other commercial techniques should be incorporated doctrinally to reduce or eliminate the operational demands on transmit energy. Recommendation 4e. The Army should study alternatives for the military network design to optimize power consumption. For example, it should investigate the use of commercial low-orbit satellite systems and unmanned aerial vehicles as relatively energy-efficient alternatives that may also provide high-bandwidth capabilities. REFERENCES NRC (National Research Council). 1997. Energy-Efficient Technologies for the Dismounted Soldier. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press. Available from http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=5905. NRC. 2004. Meeting the Energy Needs of Future Warriors. Washington, D.C.: The National Academies Press. Available from http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11065.
