Finalists Reach for $1 Million Pentagon Power Prize

By Noah Shachtman

169 teams originally signed up for the Pentagon's million-dollar, wearable power competition. Now, the field has been winnowed to just 48 teams. They'll square off on October 4th, to claim the seven-figure prize.

Soldiers today are lugging around more and more electronics. And that means an increasingly-heavy load of batteries. The Defense Department figures the typical grunt could be carrying around 20 pounds' worth of power on a 96-hour mission. So they started a contest last year, to see who could trim that burden the best. $1 million goes to the folks who can come up with "a wearable system that provides 20 watts (avg.) of electrical power for 96 hours, weighs less than 4 kilograms (8.8 pounds), attaches to a standard military vest, and operates autonomously," the Defense Department notes.

The finals of the competition, in Twentynine Palms, California, features giant defense contractors like Lockheed Martin, as well as hobbyists, working on their off-hours. (Ares has profiles of many entrants.) The finals start with a "92-hour bench load test that has demands comparable to the military’s current and future power requirements," GCN notes. "Systems that last... take part in a final four-hour 'wear-off.'"