Integrated Fight Through Power Provides Electrical Redundancies

Sea Power, Sep 2006

BACKGROUND:

The Integrated Fight Through Power (IFTP) is the electrical distribution system for the nextgeneration destroyer, DDG-1000, formerly DD(X). It provides redundant power and isolates electrical disturbances, thereby improving the quantity, quality and reliability of electrical power.

SCOPE

DRS will provide advanced power conversion modules and load centers for the low-voltage distribution system of the DDG-1000. Bath Iron Works issued a contract potentially valued at more than $186 million for up to six shipsets of IFTP equipment to be supplied to Bath or Northrop Grumman Ship Systems, the two shipyards scheduled to build DDG-1000s.

TIMELINE

In November 2003, DRS delivered development models of power conversion modules to the Naval Surface Warfare Center LandBased Test Site in Philadelphia. Detailed design of the IFTP equipment is under way with qualification testing scheduled for January 2008. The first two shipsets are to be delivered in June 2009, with six shipsets of equipment scheduled for production through 2016.

WHO'S IN CHARGE

Roger Sexauer, president of DRS Power Systems, joined DRS in 2004. He is a former vice president of Electric Boat, the submarine construction unit of General Dynamics, and before that was a naval submarine officer.

In 2002, DRS acquired its first power business, Eaton Navy Controls, which built power distribution systems. For the DD(X) competition, we joined the Blue Team, with Bath Iron Works and Lockheed Martin. The Gold Team of Northrop Grumman and Raytheon had Kaman Engineering Development Co., which provided a motor design, and Power Technology Inc., to do the motor drive. The Blue Team lost, so DRS bought the competition and joined the DD(X) program.

With Eaton, we had all this power conversion expertise, and now we had companies that did motor and motor drive design. Eaton had a contract to develop a permanent magnet motor and drive system. There can be a lot of commonality between a motor drive and power conversion equipment. We wanted to design as much commonality in the DD(X)Is electrical power distribution system as we could.

The IFTP is like the circuit-breaker panel in your house. It takes converted electrical power, conditions it to get it to the right voltages and distributes it to all different loads around the ship. There are eight zones on the DD(X), each redundant to the other. If you lose power on the port side of the ship, you can cross-connect it to the starboard side to power vital loads.

Our vision is that, although the specific ship class requirements may be different, we can use these same power electronic building blocks from ship to ship and get some common economy of scale between classes. There aren't any tremendous technical challenges. The biggest challenge is getting cost out of it, given the quantities we are building.