Wave Motion Wins Grand Prize in U.S. Army xTech Pacific competition!
Wave Motion has been named one of ten winners in the Army’s xTech Pacific Competition!
Wave Motion’s COO and cofounder Dr. James Penna traveled to Honolulu, HI to deliver a presentation on 9/15/23 to a panel of Army officers, engineers, and experts. Dr. Penna brought along a prototype Jet Gun that was fabricated and test fired by Wave Motion as a demonstrator for infantry indirect fires applications.
The theme of the competition was overcoming the “tyranny of distance.” Wave Motion’s Jet Gun was pitched as a way to overcome the logistics penalties imposed by fighting in a theater of warfare such as the Pacific, which involves crossing vast distances and maintaining supply chains and power for various Army systems. The Jet Gun is smaller and lighter than equivalent artillery and indirect fires systems by over 50%, allowing more units to be transported at once or freeing up space for additional equipment and ammunition. Besides this advantage, the Jet Gun’s ability to accelerate projectiles of different calibers and g-force tolerance makes it unconstrained from relying on one particular ammunition supply, giving it flexibility to operate in situations other fire systems cannot.
The winners of this competition each received a $25,000 grand prize in addition to previous $5,000 and $15,000 prizes awarded during the earlier stages of the competition. The winners of the final round are also eligible to apply to the “Pacific Open Topic” SBIR for a Phase I project worth up to $250k or Direct to Phase II project worth up to $1.9 million. Wave Motion plans to apply for the SBIR topic, stay tuned for results! The full list of competition winners can be found here: https://www.xtech.army.mil/competition/xtechpacific/
Dr. James Penna poses with one of Wave Motion’s Jet Gun prototypes at the Entrepreneur’s Sandbox in Honolulu, HI after delivering the final round presentation for the xTech Pacific competition.