Cyclone Power Successfully Completes First Stage of RTI EATR Project

7 July 2009

Cyclone Power Technologies Inc. has completed the first stage of its project with Robotic Technology Inc. (RTI), of Potomac, MD, to develop a beta biomass engine system for use in a series hybrid subsystem in RTI’s Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot (EATR). (Earlier post.)

This is a Phase II SBIR project sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Defense Sciences Office.

In this first stage Cyclone successfully coupled its proprietary steam generator with a compact biomass furnace to be used with the prototype EATR, and produced sufficient steam to power Cyclone’s six-cylinder, 16 hp (12 kW) Waste Heat Engine (WHE).

With the completion of this stage, RTI has paid Cyclone a total of $50,000 in development fees. Cyclone will now proceed to attaching the WHE to this heat source and commence system performance testing with the goal of delivering a complete beta system to RTI in the next 90 days.

RTI’s EATR is an autonomous robotic platform able to perform long-range, long-endurance military missions without the need for manual or conventional re-fueling. The patent pending robotic system can find, ingest and extract energy from biomass in the environment, as well as use conventional and alternative fuels (such as gasoline, diesel, propane and solar) when suitable.