The solar-powered soldier
 Lowell-based Konarka Technologies wants to fire up the 21st-century soldier with its light-activated power plastic. |
Just to function in the field, soldiers must carry an array of electronic gadgets ranging from night vision goggles to GPS units to laptop computers--not to mention a whole lot of replacement batteries.
But a team of researchers in Natick is trying to lighten their load by harnessing the power of the sun with a new generation of photovoltaic technology. Traditionally, photovoltaic cells have been rigid, heavy, fragile, and expensive--think of solar panels on the roofs of buildings. But new breakthroughs have produced lightweight, flexible, lower-cost materials that the Army has been evaluating to power up battery rechargers, tents and shelters, and other electrical devices.
"We are looking into making what is believed to be the first-known photovoltaic fibers," said Lynne Samuelson, a research chemist at the Natick Soldier Center, an Army research and development facility at the US Army Soldier Systems Center in Natick, which is dedicated to creating, engineering, and testing new technologies (from combat clothing to airdrop systems to special food) that maximize a soldier's chance of surviving combat. "These fibers are incredibly thin--similar to a fishing line," she said. "Within the next several years, we hope to weave them into fabric. If we can accomplish this, we won't have to slap photovoltaic panels onto fabric; the fabric itself would generate power."
A local company is helping light the solar-powered soldiers' way. In May, the Army signed a $1.6 million contract with Konarka Technologies Inc., a four-year-old Lowell company, to develop ways to incorporate its photovoltaic plastic sheeting into fabric for uniforms, tents, and other structures.
Eventually Konarka hopes to see its technology applied well beyond the battlefield. "We want to take things that exist today--furniture, building materials, accessories--and give them the ability to create energy," says Daniel Patrick McGahn, the company's executive vice president and chief marketing officer. "If there's light available, there's an application for it."
