A long-term solution to the climate and air pollution crises facing the world today includes electrification of almost all energy and obtaining that electricity from clean, renewable sources. Whereas ...electric alternatives exist for nearly all energy sectors, they do not exist for long-distance, heavy passenger aircraft, freight locomotives, or ships. Of particular note, solutions do not currently exist for military combat vehicles, such as armored tanks, oceangoing vessels, and rotary- and fixed-wing aircraft. Some have claimed such transport cannot be transitioned. This study evaluates whether such land, air, and sea vehicles can be replaced with battery electric and/or hydrogen fuel cell equivalents while maintaining vehicle range, mass, volume, and power- or thrust-to-weight ratio characteristics, more parameters than previously evaluated. Here we show that armored tanks, freight trains, boats, oceangoing vessels, helicopters, prop planes, and jumbo jets have potential to transition using identified technological advancements and solutions suggested achievable within literature. Furthermore, we provide an example of the impact to sustainability by showing that transitioning energy for United States Army vehicles could have the equivalent environmental improvement of taking nearly 700,000 passenger cars off the road today.
•Examined converting military vehicles to battery and hydrogen fuel cell electric.•Goal to maintain/improve range, mass, volume, and power- or thrust-to weight ratio.•Analyzed tanks, trains, helicopters, prop planes, jumbo jets, ships, and boats.•All vehicles can transition to hydrogen fuel cell with published future technology.•Some vehicles can transition to battery electric; combustion may no longer be needed.
Due to the absence of utility power grid infrastructure in remote military bases, on-site diesel generators serve as the primary sources for power demands. Increasing efficiency and preventing ...frequent startup/shutdown operations of on-site diesel generators are therefore becoming a critical issue for reducing fuel cost. Application of vehicle-to-grid technology in a military-based microgrid embodies potential for significant fuel economy benefits since on-board vehicle generators and energy storage units can serve as mobile power sources that provide higher flexibility for supplying power demands. In addition, energy storage system integration is considered as an alternative solution for increasing on-site diesel generators efficiency and lessening their startup/shutdown operations. This article proposes a three-stage planning procedure for identifying the optimal locations and capacities of energy storage systems, considering multiple operating scenarios via stochastic programming. Note that on-site diesel generators and on-board vehicle generators support plug-and-play functionality, meaning their startup/shutdown operations can be decided in real time. Furthermore, network-constrained ac unit commitment model is used to optimize operation of microgrids. It is assumed that in the tested microgrid systems, several tactical military vehicles with on-board generators and energy storage units are deployed as alternative power sources. The economic merits of vehicle-to-grid implementation and energy storage system integration in a military-based microgrid are validated in the numerical studies.
The challenge of automatic target recognition of military targets within a synthetic aperture radar scene is addressed in this paper. The proposed approach exploits the discrete-defined Krawtchouk ...moments, which are able to represent a detected extended target with few features, allowing its characterization. The proposed algorithm provides robust performance for target recognition, identification, and characterization, with high reliability in the presence of noise and reduced sensitivity to discretization errors. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated using the MSTAR dataset.
Mobility of military vehicles is a key element of military transport and it guarantees safety of the logistic system of the Armed Forces. The aim of this article is to compare medium-load and ...high-mobility means of transport belonging to the Polish Armed Forces and to identify the vehicle with the best parameters. The Analytic Hierarchy Process method was used for this, and this paper approximates its assumptions and process. Seven vehicles currently in use by the Polish Armed Forces were compared. As a result of the analysis, a hierarchy of the studied vehicles was established, ranking them from the highest to the lowest rated. The paper allows to assess whether the currently purchased Jelcz 442.32 is a good choice in the procuring policy of the Polish army.
This note introduces a new concept of cooperative and adversarial multigroup system, which consists of cooperative leaders and followers, as well as adversaries. For example, cooperation of multiple ...military vehicles operate in complex dynamic networked environments with unknown enemies and hidden malicious attackers. The lack of global situational awareness in distributed settings makes autonomous vehicles prone to cyberattacks and infiltration. Each agent is unaware of the motives of its neighbors and may receive information/data from both the teammates and the adversaries. Secure and resilient control protocols are essential for the networked multigroup systems to prevent the adversaries' attacks from propagating across the network, which may influence the system performance and even overall stability. To counter sensor faults and attacks from the adversaries, a distributed resilient control architecture is proposed, which guarantees uniform ultimate boundedness of the closed-loop dynamical system. Numerical simulations illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed results.
Abstract Under vertical impact loads, such as explosions, serious compressive deformation occurs in the pelvic bones and lumbar vertebrae of the human body leading to injuries or fatalities for ...occupants. This study focuses on the occupant-seat model in military vehicles, establishes a biomechanical model of the human spine, and establishes the relationship between vertical impact loads and human injuries. Subsequently, a C-shaped energy-absorbing cushioning structure is designed for application at the bottom support of the seat. Using a peak value of 50 g explosion-simulated triangular wave loading, the study compares the attenuation effects of different structural characteristics of cushioning energy-absorbing structures on impact loads. The results indicate that a 50 g peak vertical impact load can cause significant human injuries. The designed energy-absorbing cushioning structure can greatly reduce human response, but both excessively soft and rigid energy-absorbing cushioning structures fail to achieve effective impact attenuation.
Many wildlife species face imminent extinction because of human impacts, and therefore, a prevailing belief is that some wildlife species, particularly large carnivores and ungulates, cannot coexist ...with people at fine spatial scales (i.e., cannot regularly use the exact same point locations). This belief provides rationale for various conservation programs, such as resettling human communities outside protected areas. However, quantitative information on the capacity and mechanisms for wildlife to coexist with humans at fine spatial scales is scarce. Such information is vital, because the world is becoming increasingly crowded. Here, we provide empirical information about the capacity and mechanisms for tigers (a globally endangered species) to coexist with humans at fine spatial scales inside and outside Nepal’s Chitwan National Park, a flagship protected area for imperiled wildlife. Information obtained from field cameras in 2010 and 2011 indicated that human presence (i.e., people on foot and vehicles) was ubiquitous and abundant throughout the study site; however, tiger density was also high. Surprisingly, even at a fine spatial scale (i.e., camera locations), tigers spatially overlapped with people on foot and vehicles in both years. However, in both years, tigers offset their temporal activity patterns to be much less active during the day when human activity peaked. In addition to temporal displacement, tiger–human coexistence was likely enhanced by abundant tiger prey and low levels of tiger poaching. Incorporating fine-scale spatial and temporal activity patterns into conservation plans can help address a major global challenge—meeting human needs while sustaining wildlife.
Asian countries have abundant resources of natural fibers, but unfortunately, they have not been optimally utilized. The facts showed that from 2014 to 2020, there was a shortfall in meeting national ...demand of over USD 2.75 million per year. Therefore, in order to develop the utilization and improve the economic potential as well as the sustainability of natural fibers, a comprehensive review is required. The study aimed to demonstrate the availability, technological processing, and socio-economical aspects of natural fibers. Although many studies have been conducted on this material, it is necessary to revisit their potential from those perspectives to maximize their use. The renewability and biodegradability of natural fiber are part of the fascinating properties that lead to their prospective use in automotive, aerospace industries, structural and building constructions, bio packaging, textiles, biomedical applications, and military vehicles. To increase the range of applications, relevant technologies in conjunction with social approaches are very important. Hence, in the future, the utilization can be expanded in many fields by considering the basic characteristics and appropriate technologies of the natural fibers. Selecting the most prospective natural fiber for creating national products can be assisted by providing an integrated management system from a digitalized information on potential and related technological approaches. To make it happens, collaborations between stakeholders from the national R&D agency, the government as policy maker, and academic institutions to develop national bioproducts based on domestic innovation in order to move the circular economy forward are essential.
This paper presents the challenges and perspectives regarding the technologization of military vehicles designed to be used in combat operations or in combat support. The technological progress ...registered in the production of batteries for the commercial automotive field has generated more and more interest in the hybridization or electrification of military vehicles, but also in the utilization of UGVs on the battlefield. In terms of survivability, either discussing about tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, armoured personnel carriers, or light tactical vehicles, in addition to the armor protection offered to the crew, the emphasis is increasingly on the implementation of active protection systems designed to remove or diminish the effects of enemy strikes. Moreover, as UAVs are more and more present in combat operations, the concept of 360 degrees of protection of vehicles has changed now to a hemispherical need of protection, considering the highly effective threats from above. Another actual trend to be considered is the multi-platform concept with distributed capabilities rather than all-in-one platforms, introducing the collaborative combat approach. Nevertheless, considering the complexity of these advanced systems, their high costs when acquiring or maintaining them, and their impact on logistic support, the implementation of such technologies in military vehicles is not that accelerated.
In order to improve the accuracy of object detection based on deep learning for military vehicles., an object detection algorithm based on image style transfer and domain adversarial learning is ...proposed. Aiming at the problem of the small number of military vehicle images., a military vehicle image dataset is constructed by using games., miniature models and spider technology. However., due to the visual difference between these images., the accuracy of the trained detection model is poor when it is directly used to detect the actual collected images. CycleGAN is used for image style transfer to obtain images with a similar style to military vehicle images at the data level. Domain adversarial learning is used to optimize the one-stage object detection algorithm to make the network learn domain invariant features and reduce the domain discrepancy at the feature level. The proposed algorithm is implemented with YOLOv5s as an example. The test results show that the proposed algorithm improves the average precision (AP) by 5.7 % without increasing the amount of inference computation., compared with the YOLOv5s algorithm.
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