US Air Force Awards Wright Electric to Develop 3D Printed Batteries for Drones

The U.S. Air Force has awarded Wright Electric a Phase 1 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract to develop high-power output rechargeable batteries made with additive manufacturing (AM). Announced on August 7, this contract will allow the New York-based startup to explore the use of its advanced thermal battery technology in multi-rotor uncrewed air vehicles.

Wright Electric is known for its development of megawatt-hour-size batteries, capable of delivering 1,000 watt-hours per kilogram. These high-density batteries are designed for future all-electric airliners and are now being adapted for military use with the support of scientists from Columbia University in New York City.

The SBIR builds off of a $1,499,098 ARPA-E grant awarded to the company and Columbia University earlier this year under the PROPEL-1K program. That grant will see the partners create an aluminum-air flow battery featuring swappable aluminum anodes for mechanical recharging. Although aluminum-air chemistry offers high energy density, it has traditionally faced challenges with rechargeability and clogging due to reaction product buildup. To address these issues, Wright Electric employs a 3D design instead of the conventional two-dimensional planar approach, enhancing the contact between the anode and cathode. Additionally, the system incorporates a circulating electrolyte to prevent the accumulation of reaction products within the cell structure, effectively overcoming the limitations of static aluminum-air batteries.

These batteries are intended to replace the single-use batteries currently used by the U.S. military. By utilizing 3D printing techniques, Wright Electric aims to produce compact, high-performance batteries that are both sustainable and economically viable. Additionally, by producing battery components in-house, Wright Electric can ensure a more resilient supply chain for critical defense materials, reducing dependency on external suppliers and mitigating risks associated with supply chain disruptions.

“We’ve heard from many aerospace and defense customers that they want compact batteries with extremely high power output,” said Aaron Rowe, Engineering Manager of Batteries at Wright Electric. “Thanks to support from the Air Force, we can take our first steps with a new program to deliver batteries that are extremely compact and capable of ultra high discharge rates. Instead of advancing a completely new battery chemistry, our aim is to develop a process that will let us do limited production runs of exotic batteries at a reasonable cost. We will construct a production line that can very rapidly adapt to the needs of our customers.”

The Department of Defense (DoD) is increasingly focused on improving energy resilience and operational efficiency. Wright Electric’s rechargeable thermal batteries, enhanced through 3D printing, provide the military with high power availability at ultra-high discharge rates, essential for rapid and reliable energy delivery in critical scenarios. This collaboration with the Air Force allows Wright Electric to explore new applications for its technology beyond civil air transport, potentially accelerating its path to commercialization and bypassing the lengthy Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) approval process.

If the Afwerx project advances to Phase 2, Wright Electric will conduct extensive testing and evaluation of its 3D-printed batteries, paving the way for full-scale deployment. In addition to its defense applications, Wright Electric is advancing its work on a 2.5-megawatt electric motor, the WM2500, designed for future commercial airliners. This motor is expected to deliver a power density of 16 kilowatts-per-kilogram, suitable for use in turboprop or turbofan propulsion systems.

The construction of the first rotating rotor unit for the WM2500 has been completed, and the stationary stator part is currently being manufactured. Wright Electric plans to assemble the motor by the end of the summer, with laboratory testing scheduled at NASA’s Electric Aircraft Testbed for altitude chamber evaluation.

While the applications in this area are for aviation, batteries and electric motors are nearly ubiquitous in the modern world and the technology could be adapted to other areas, such as energy generation for general civilian use. This is discussed in greater depth in a recent 3DPrint.com PRO article. All that is necessary for these dual-use technologies to go from military applications to supporting civil works would be the flip of an ideological switch at the individual, group, and societal level. Flipping that switch, however, requires systemic changes that are harder to envision.