APE Gets Military Research Grant

Arkansas Power Electronics International Inc. (APEI) of Fayetteville just won a $750,000, Phase II Small Business Innovation Research grant from the U.S. Army Research Labs.

The award is one of six grants or contracts totaling more than $2.5 million that APEI has secured since Jan. 2003. The high-pressure, high-power electronics and electric motor drive firm has been tabbed by several high-techies as Arkansas’ next best “break out” bet among information technology companies.

The latest grant is for developing high-temperature, three-phase motor drives for hybrid electric combat vehicles.

The firm won a 3.5-year, $1.8 million contract with the Army research office at the end of March. That job is for developing high-temperature DC to DC converters for hybrid electric combat vehicles. All of APEI’s work falls under the military’s hot new Future Combat Systems Program, or FCS projects.

APEI has four full-time and two part-time engineers now, but Alex Lostetter, its president and senior engineer, said the company could add three to five engineers by year’s end.

“We still have five or six other irons in the fire, too,” Lostetter said. “We could be looking to hire a lot of engineers down the road.”