Meeting Military Standards with Commercial Power Technologies

Blog Summary

• Military Standards Compliance: Defense and aerospace sectors are increasingly adopting commercial components—including power conversion technologies—that meet stringent U.S. DoD standards, enabling rapid, cost-effective deployment of rugged, high-performance systems across land, sea, and air applications.

• Cutting-Edge, Scalable Technologies: Advanced Energy offers a wide range of high-efficiency AC-DC and DC-DC power supplies, converters, and configurable platforms (e.g., Artesyn® LCC1200, AYA series, iHP, Evergreen™ Vento FCM, Excelsys XF) that address size, weight and power challenges and enable rapid customization and scalability.

• Market Growth & Strategic Advantage: The shift toward commercial solutions aligned with DoD standards allows defense and aerospace designers to leverage the latest technologies more cost-effectively, contributing to a projected 3.8% CAGR in the military-grade power market through 2028.

In recent years, there has been an increasing adoption of commercial components and subsystems within defense and aerospace sectors, encompassing land, sea, and air applications. This is as true for power conversion and delivery technologies as it is for semiconductors, passive components and electro-mechanical parts, all of which must meet the standards set by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). These standards are among the world’s most exacting and have been duplicated or referenced by many allied forces.

In this blog, we look at the four major military standards relating to power system design and how Advanced Energy’s (AE) commercially available power technologies enable the rapid and cost-effective implementation of rugged, reliable, high-performance systems for the defense and aerospace sectors.[i]

Military standards

For power systems, the relevant standards are MIL-STD-704, MIL-STD-1399, MIL-STD-461, and MIL-STD-810. The final system’s compliance with these standards guarantees that the products can withstand extreme conditions and will perform reliably in a wide variety of mission-critical applications.

[i] Advanced Energy products and services are commercial in nature and are not International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) compliant.

the four major military standards relating to power system design and how Advanced Energy’s (AE) commercially available power technologies enable the rapid and cost-effective implementation of rugged, reliable, high-performance systems for the defense and aerospace sectors.

MIL-STD-704: This standard defines the electrical power characteristics for aircraft systems, covering acceptable voltage ranges, frequencies, and transient behaviors. It specifies compatibility with aircraft power buses and mandates the ability to withstand variations and transients commonly encountered in flight environments. To comply, power supplies must maintain stable operation under dynamic conditions and, while the standard doesn't explicitly dictate how this should be achieved, enhanced input filtering and regulation will typically be required.

MIL-STD-1399: This standard applies in the case of naval platforms. Like MIL-STD-704, this standard addresses the need to manage factors such as voltage transients and frequency fluctuations. However, the standard places a greater emphasis on operational stability and electromagnetic compatibility (EMC), assigning more weight to load interaction, harmonic distortion, and the specifics of grounding.

MIL-STD-461: While the above standard considers electromagnetic interference (EMI) through power interface characteristics and examines how equipment affects the power quality on the bus, this is only one facet of how EMI affects a plane or vessel. Because of this, MIL-STD-461 has been created. This standard specifically addresses EMI across the entire spectrum and for all coupling paths. In the case of power systems, the standard typically requires that robust design principles are implemented, especially with respect to shielding, filtering, and grounding.

MIL-STD-810: Finally, because of the almost unlimited number of extreme environments in which military equipment operates, MIL-STD-810 has been developed to ensure that each system performs reliably in the target environment. This standard addresses extremes of temperature, shock, vibration, and humidity, and encompasses resilience to a wider range of environmental factors such as sand and dust, salt fog and altitude. As each operational environment is unique, the standard does not mandate a fixed set of tests. Instead, it provides a framework that can be tailored to the specific environment where the application operates.

Commercial power solutions for defense and aerospace applications

The availability and integration of commercial power systems has grown as military designers and engineers look to both work within budgetary limitations and ensure they access the very latest technologies. Historical approaches involved choosing products that had been subject to lengthy governmental evaluation. This often meant that the latest technologies could not be deployed, or that time- and resource-consuming custom solutions were the only option. With an increased availability of relevant commercial power solutions that are designed to meet the DoD standards mentioned above, design teams have the ability to choose ‘state-of-the-art’ options and devote more time to their core competencies, adding value and competitive advantage to the target applications.

These are just some of the reasons that analysts have forecast the military-grade AC-DC and DC-DC commercial power market will grow at a CAGR of 3.8% from 2023 through 2028^.ii

Advanced Energy specializes in commercial solutions applicable for military applications, which provide high-quality, low-risk, and cost-effective options for military applications – though these products and services are not International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) compliant, they are designed to meet the above-listed stringent DoD standards. The AE commercial products, which include AC-DC and DC-DC power supplies, front-end solutions and point-of-load (PoL) converters, are precisely engineered to endure harsh environments while delivering high reliability and efficiency. Reliability is crucial for mission success, as it guarantees that critical equipment and sensitive electronics receive clean and stable power irrespective of operating conditions. With high power efficiency and high-power densities, AE products address the size, weight and power (SWaP) challenges facing many defense and aerospace designers.

Take, for example, the Artesyn® LCC1200 fanless power supply, which has been developed to maximize uptime, even when placed in the most challenging of operational conditions. Environmentally sealed, the module is resistant to sand, dust and salt fog and it maintains its full 1,200 W load capacity without forced air across its operational baseplate temperature range of -40 to 85 °C.

Artesyn LCC1200 fanless power supply (left) and AYA 3 W DC-DC Converter (right)

For DC-DC applications, the AYA series of 3 W isolated DC-DC converters is suited to low-power and space-limited applications that demand exceptional reliability. Housed in a casing that is just 8.1 mm high and implementing fixed-frequency switching, these power converters minimize the need for external EMI filtering while delivering an efficiency of 80% across an operational temperature range of -40 to 85 ºC.

Adaptability and versatility

Defense and aerospace applications have exceptionally diverse requirements, and Advanced Energy offers a wide range of power densities, output voltages, and form factors to match these requirements and provide precision, durability and mission-critical performance.

Here, a good example can be found in the highly configurable iHP air-cooled series. These platforms offer high-accuracy resolution and stability as either a programmable voltage or current source. Housed in a standard 19-inch rack, the units can be configured for up to eight outputs using a variety of plug-in modules to address a variety of voltages and currents. A wide range (0.6 VDC to 300 VDC in eight increments) of 3 kW single-slot modules gives a total output power of 24 kW. By dropping the number of outputs, and using 12 kW modules, the power supply unit can also be configured to increase the provided power to a maximum of 30 kW in the standard iHP 24 kW package.

The iHP Air Cooled Series (left) and Evergreen Vento

Similarly, the Evergreen™ Vento FCM is a high-efficiency and high-power-density bulk 10 kW AC-DC converter that has been designed to enable rapid customization and power scaling. The PSU has a power density of 38 W/in3 and offers a 0.98 power factor to deliver better than 95% efficiency. The FCM 30K combines three Evergreen Vento PSUs into an industry-standard 19-inch shelf for 30 kW of power. Additionally, up to four FCM 30K shelves can be combined with a shelf controller to create a 120-kW subsystem, with multiple subsystems in a rack, allowing military system developers to efficiently scale the system output to exceptionally high-power levels for use across a wide range of high-power applications.

Additionally, the Excelsys XF family of AC-DC configurable power supplies with power density of 11.9 W/in3, provide 400 to 1000 W in an extremely compact 1U design. Conformal coating, ruggedization, an operating temperature range of -55 to 70°C, and certification to MIL-STD-810G and MIL-STD-471F (CE101 and CE102) make it ideal for harsh environments. Offering up to 12 isolated outputs and a 5 V/250 mA bias standby, the XF platform can provide output voltages up to 348 VDC. Typical application use includes industrial, test and measurement, communications, fixed and mobile radar, and military electronics, which use either Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) or modified COTS solutions.

The XF series of low voltage power supplies for challenging environments

Proven reliability

With unmatched experience in the power conversion industry, Advanced Energy has a proven track record of providing rugged, high-efficiency, high-quality products that are trusted for their performance, reliability and ability to minimize form factors and weight. As you would expect, all the company’s commercial power platforms undergo extensive testing to ensure that the products meet stringent military standards and regulations. What’s more, choosing these technologies can also help developers to simplify and speed compliance of the final system.

AE’s offering for defense and aerospace customers goes beyond the power technologies themselves, encompassing complementary products for testing and calibration. Products such as the TEGAM 720A Intrinsically Safe Bond Meter / Milli-Ohmmeter, for example, can be used to verify mechanical and electrical bonds for safety, conductivity, mechanical integrity, RF shielding and lightning protection. With the TEGAM brand, AE continues to provide bond meters and milli-ohmmeters to the U.S. Armed Forces.

Ensuring mission-critical success

The clean and stable power delivery that power conversion products and sub-assemblies provide to critical system electronics makes these technologies fundamental to successfully developing mission-critical defense and aerospace applications. The increased availability of commercial power platforms that are designed and tested to ensure compliance with key military standards makes the implementation of power schemes in defense and aerospace applications easier, faster and more cost-effective than ever before.

To meet the diverse needs of these applications, Advanced Energy’s portfolio of offerings comes with a wide range of power densities, output voltages and form factors. Designed to align with key military standards, our technologies offer field-proven performance, environmental hardening, and the electrical resilience required for complex applications operating in the world’s harshest conditions. Whether its powering radar and sonar systems, unmanned vehicles or navigation equipment, the company’s solutions – backed by comprehensive global design and engineering support – are designed to provide precision, durability and mission-critical performance.

For further information on Advanced Energy’s offering for the defense and aerospace sector, please visit Defense & Aerospace Power Supplies | Faster MIL-STD Solutions | Advanced Energy.

Meeting Military Standards with Commercial Power Technologies

Veröffentlicht September 15, 2025 von Todd Hendrix

Todd Hendrix