The European Defense Agency has commenced the second phase of its Hybrid Drive Train Demonstrator program.
The organization held a kickoff meeting with representatives from participating nations such as Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Slovenia and Poland.
The HybriDT program aims to design wheeled and tracked demonstrators with hybrid drive trains to improve defense mobility.
Phase 2 will have a total budget of about $1.82 million and will last for 15 months. During this period, the EDA and a pan-European consortium of industrial and research organizations will explore the technologies necessary to build a modular and scalable hybrid demonstrator for military applications. The technology must meet several requirements, including weight and space saving and thermal radiation and fuel consumption reduction.
While the primary focus of the research is on wheeled vehicles, the program may also consider 8×8 and 6×6 infantry fighting vehicles.
Graz-based mobility technology company AVL serves as the consortium’s project leader. General Dynamics European Land Systems, DNV, TNO, VDL, the Polish Military University of Technology, the University of Ljubljana and the Institute for Chemical Technology Fraunhofer are also working in the program.