U.S. Army announces “Green Warrior Convoy”

WASHINGTON — The Army announced plans today for a “Green War­rior Con­voy” to demon­strate and edu­cate the val­ue of sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy in Army vehi­cles.

An Autonomous Plat­form Demon­stra­tor, or APD, maneu­vers over con­crete blocks dur­ing a Tank Auto­mo­tive Research, Devel­op­ment and Engi­neer­ing Cen­ter tour, in con­junc­tion with ground­break­ing for the Ground Sys­tem Pow­er and Ener­gy Lab. The APD is help­ing TARDEC engi­neers devel­op, inte­grate and test next-gen­er­a­tion unmanned ground vehi­cle mobil­i­ty tech­nolo­gies. Click to enlarge

Elk­ton High School stu­dents helped the Army beta test its new Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy, Engi­neer­ing and Math­e­mat­ics Asset Vehi­cle in the school park­ing lot, Dec. 5, 2011. Click to enlarge

Kather­ine Ham­mack, the assis­tant sec­re­tary of the Army for Instal­la­tions, Ener­gy and Envi­ron­ment, made the announce­ment dur­ing the open­ing of the Army’s new Ground Sys­tems Pow­er and Ener­gy Lab­o­ra­to­ry, or GSPEL, at the Detroit Arse­nal, War­ren, Mich. 

Ham­mack said that one year from today the Army will launch a “Green War­rior Con­voy” of vehi­cles from Detroit to Wash­ing­ton as part of the road test­ing of tech­nolo­gies and sys­tems devel­oped at the Tank Auto­mo­tive Research, Devel­op­ment and Engi­neer­ing Cen­ter, or TARDEC. 

This con­voy of tech­nolo­gies will stop at schools and com­mu­ni­ties along the way to demon­strate and edu­cate the val­ue of sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy in vehi­cles. From fuel cells to hybrid sys­tems, bat­tery tech­nolo­gies to alter­na­tive fuels, the Army will high­light its advanced vehi­cle pow­er and tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ments through the convoy. 

The Green War­rior Con­voy vehi­cles com­ple­ment the Army Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy, Engi­neer­ing and Math­e­mat­ics, or STEM, Asset Vehi­cle. The STEM Asset Vehi­cle, launched in Jan­u­ary, like this con­voy of tech­nolo­gies, is designed to pub­li­cize STEM careers and demon­strate how civil­ian sci­en­tists and engi­neers help to ensure America’s nation­al secu­ri­ty along with uni­formed Soldiers. 

The convoy’s lit­er­al route, from War­ren to Wash­ing­ton, and the com­ple­ment of vehi­cles with­in the con­voy will be announced at a lat­er date. 

The GSPEL is a com­pre­hen­sive addi­tion to TARDEC’s series of lab­o­ra­to­ries. The eight-in-one facil­i­ty offers numer­ous test­ing capa­bil­i­ties and an unmatched com­bi­na­tion of resources in a sin­gle lab. 

The cen­ter­piece, the Pow­er and Ener­gy Vehi­cle Envi­ron­men­tal Lab, or PEVEL, fea­tures one of the world’s largest envi­ron­men­tal cham­bers. The lab’s dynamome­ter and envi­ron­men­tal cham­ber com­bi­na­tion allows full mis­sion pro­file test­ing of every ground vehi­cle plat­form in the mil­i­tary inven­to­ry in any envi­ron­men­tal con­di­tion. The PEVEL enables test­ing at tem­per­a­tures from minus 60°F to 160°F, in rel­a­tive humid­i­ty lev­els from 0 to 95 per­cent and with winds up to 60 mph. 

The GSPEL offers shared access to indus­try and acad­e­mia to facil­i­tate the exchange of infor­ma­tion and ideas to devel­op emerg­ing ener­gy tech­nolo­gies and val­i­date ground vehi­cle sys­tems, research that could also help the Nation achieve ener­gy secu­ri­ty goals. 

For more infor­ma­tion con­tact the Media Rela­tions Divi­sion, Office of the Chief of Pub­lic Affairs, at 703.697.5344.

Source:
U.S. Army