ACT Awarded SBIR Phase II funding for MIDS JTRS Thermal Management System
Lancaster, PA, February 11 2020 – The Navy has funded Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) for Phase II of the Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) program, “Advanced Cooling Options for Multifunctional Information Distribution System (MIDS) Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) Terminals”. Under this SBIR, ACT is developing an innovative thermal management system for MIDS JTRS terminals that integrates multiple technologies to significantly increase cooling performance while maintaining size, weight, and power (SWaP) of the system. These MIDS JTRS cooling enhancements potentially afford a significant reduction in terminal Total Ownership Cost (TOC) as the US Navy seeks to increase terminal reliability and provide more capabilities to the fleet.
In the Phase I project, ACT worked closely with the MIDS manufacturers (BAE Systems, Rockwell Collins, ViaSat) to perform a detailed analysis evaluating thermal bottlenecks of MIDS JTRS terminals. ACT then assessed the impact of implementing a large number of potential thermal enhancement technologies at each thermal path, as well as on the overall system. To demonstrate the proposed improvements experimentally, a prototype Hi-K (heat pipe) card frame was fabricated and tested, alongside ICE-LokTM (wedge lock) technology. The Phase II portion will focus on continued prototyping, SWaP analysis and Hi-K card frame validation/qualification efforts with MIDS Program Office (MPO) and MIDS manufacturers to enable a “smooth transition” into MIDS Program of Record.
According to Dr. Srujan Rokkam, the Lead Engineer for the project “We are excited to continue the thermal technologies research and development for MIDS. Successful demonstration of ACT’s Hi-K plates in a relevant environment would improve current MIDS terminal reliability and performance. We look forward to working with the MPO and MIDS prime manufactures to realize these common goals”.