Saft yesterday said BAE Systems awarded the company $1.3 million in new funds to continue development of a Lithium-ion (Li-ion) energy storage system for the Army’s Ground Combat Vehicle (GCV) program.
“Saft is proud to continue working with BAE Systems and its partners on the GCV program,” said Tom Alcide, general manager of Saft’s Specialty Battery Group. “This project is a testament to BAE Systems’ long-standing support of Saft and our expertise in designing and building state-of-the-art batteries that meet the demands of modern, sophisticated military vehicles.”
The company is designing and building ultra-high-power cells for the GCV’s hybrid electric drive system. Saft has already completed the demo battery system including hardware and software.
The GCV is part of a growing list of military vehicle prototypes for which Saft has supplied advanced energy storage solutions (ESS). The new funding for the GCV project is an addition to the initial 2010 contract.
The GCV is a nine-man Infantry Carrier that can protect against threats, move in urban and off-road terrain and accommodate emerging technologies such as lightweight armor composites and electronics.
Comprised of ultra-high-power, high-voltage VL 5U cells, the Li-ion ESS supports the GCV’s electric drive system when the vehicle is not running on gasoline, such as during silent watch missions.
The ESS system uses green technologies which improves vehicle fuel consumption and improves weight savings. Saft’s proposed ESS reduces the program cost and provides a highly reliable product by leveraging already developed subsystems and components from other qualified system to use on the GCV program.
Saft joins Northrop Grumman [NOC], iRobot [IRBT], MTU, and Qinetiq North America on the BAE Systems GCV team, one of two industry teams working on the technology development phase of the program. The 24-month technology development phase is aimed at completing preliminary design reviews in order build prototype systems before the engineering and manufacturing phase.
The GCV program has the potential to have a significant impact for Saft. If the BAE Systems–Lockheed Martin [LMT] team is selected as the Army’s design and manufacturing partner, Saft will likely be the battery supplier when production begins in 2019.