Medis Technologies Ltd. (New York) announced that the company and General Dynamics C4 Systems (GDC4), a business unit of General Dynamics (Falls Church, VA), have signed an agreement for Medis to design and develop a pre-production prototype of Medis' fuel cell power pack for the ruggedized personal digital assistant (PDA) system that General Dynamics is developing for the military.
The total price provided for in the agreement is $500,000, with an initial payment of $100,000 to Medis and the balance in accordance with payment milestones established in the agreement. In 2001, the parties entered into a mutually exclusive agreement covering small fuel cells for US military use and General Dynamics agreed to pay Medis $75,000 for development of the initial engineering concept of the fuel cell power pack for its PDA. The present agreement provides for further development of the power pack to a pre-production prototype, which includes refining the technology to be suitable for use in harsh combat environments and meeting General Dynamics' other stringent environmental standards.
It is expected that Medis will deliver completed power pack prototypes late in 2004, which will be ready for field testing and later delivery to the armed forces. The official field-testing will begin after approximately six months of internal testing at Medis for quality control and safety.
