A test‐bed 500 watt diesel fueled thermophotovoltaic (TPV) portable power supply is described. The goal of the design is a compact, rugged field portable unit weighing less than 15 pounds without fuel. The conversion efficiency goal is set at 15&percent; fuel energy to electric energy delivered to an external load at 24 volts. A burner/recuperator system has been developed to meet the objectives of high combustion air preheat temperatures with a compact heat exchanger, low excess air operation, and high convective heat transfer rates to the silicon carbide emitter surface. The burner incorporates a air blast atomizer with 100&percent; of the combustion air passing through the nozzle. Designed firing rate of 2900 watts at 0.07 gallons of oil per hour. This incorporates a single air supply dc motor/fan set and avoids the need for a system air compressor. The recuperator consists of three annular, concentric laminar flow passages. Heat from the combustion of the diesel fuel is both radiantly and convectively coupled to the inside wall of a cylindrical silicon carbide emitter. The outer wall of the emitter then radiates blackbody energy at the design temperature of 1400°C. The cylindrical emitter is enclosed in a quartz envelope that separates it from the photovoltaic (PV) cells. Spectral control is accomplished by a resonant mesh IR band‐pass filter placed between the emitter and the PV array. The narrow band of energy transmitted by the filter is intercepted and converted to electricity by an array of GaSb PV cells. The array consists of 216 1‐cm × 1‐cm GaSb cells arranged into series and parallel arrays. An array of heat pipes couple the PV cell arrays to a heat exchanger which is cooled by forced air convection. A brief status of the key TPV technologies is presented followed by data characterizing the performance of the 500 watt TPV system. © 2003 American Institute of Physics