Then, after the excitement died down, I got to wondering: "why exactly am I excited and what does TRL7 mean?"
Well, it turns out that the answer to this question is more complex than I thought. So, first of all, lets review what does TRL mean. TRL stands for Technology Readiness Level, and is a scale for measuring how close to battle proven a military technology rates. The TRL scale is typically 1-9 where 9 represents battle/mission tested, and 1 represents an idea. The figure to the right shows a graphical view of the NASA scale.The full US Army Definitions can be found at http://www.peosoldier.army.mil/spi/trl.asp .
The US Army classifies TRL7 as "Prototype near, or at, planned operational system. Represents a major step up from TRL 6, requiring demonstration of an actual system prototype in an operational environment such as an aircraft, vehicle, or space. Examples include testing the prototype in a test bed aircraft."
Since the XX25 recently conducted successful field testing, as well as Mil Spec testing late last year, TRL7 seems to be a good status for the XX25.
So back to my original question: "why should I be excited about TRL7?" I think answer is that we're successfully transitioning a unique and rugged fuel cell to market, and that this product has a well defined role to fill: and it doesn't take a fuel cell engineer long to realize that this means a whole lot more than a TRL rating!The next challenge for us is to achieve smooth manufacturing transition, and as you may know, we started on that challenge last year when we opened our manufacturing facility in Dayton, OH. I'll spend some time in my next post to update you on the exciting work we're doing in Dayton.
