Defence & Obsolescence I Design case study
Delivering soldier-wearable applications
Confronted with the need to significantly reduce power consumption in a new embedded computing platform for the military, Patrick Dietrich explains why Quantum3D turned to Connect Tech and congatec for help
D
esigning high-performance embedded computing platforms for wearable and mobile battery-
powered applications is tough, even on a good day. Add to that the requirement that the platform has to work in some of the most demanding and rugged environments in the world, and the challenge becomes exponentially more difficult.
That is exactly what the designers at Quantum3D were faced with when they set out to upgrade their Thermite TVC 2.0 TL line of tactical visual computers for mobile applications. The Thermite TL is designed for rugged environments and offers mobility, long battery life and real- time visualisation capabilities. This has been achieved by combining embedded computing, 2D/3D graphics, extended- environment conduction cooling technologies, and support for open- architecture operating systems. Despite the many benefits, the Thermite TL still had plenty of room for improvement so designers set about designing a better solution. There are many mobile applications, some of them wearable, that have similar power requirements.
• Man-wearable computing applications such as control units for robotics and small unmanned vehicles • Immersive, virtual-reality training applications such as man-wearable dismounted soldier training
20 March 2012
• Control computer on unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) • Ground vehicles, aircraft, maritime and other manned or unmanned vehicles requiring graphics-processing capabilities in a compact format
All of these applications require many types of processing, including real-time signal processing for GPS location, radar, vision and inspection systems; embedded sensor signal processing for LIDAR/LADAR point cloud visualisation; and embedded visual computing for digital map displays, heads-up/heads-down displays. Additional processing capacity is commonly needed for situational awareness, surveillance, target recognition and other demanding processing capabilities. All this processing is usually powered by batteries.
Challenges
As with any embedded computing technology, there are challenges and design issues. Four of the most pressing for mobile, wearable platforms are power use, size, weight and heat dissipation. Quantum3D designers primarily focused on the power use and efficiency of the next-generation design, aiming to achieve a 30-40 percent overall power reduction for improved battery life over the existing product. In addition, several enhancements were prioritised including improved scalability of the product for future
Components in Electronics
upgrades and a performance boost to boot.
As a result the new platform required: • Rugged portability – contained within a lightweight, rugged and sealed alloy enclosure
• Power efficiency– performance with exceptionally long battery life • Solid-state drives – shock-resistant solid-state drives for use in extreme environments
• Military connectors – mil-spec connectors for rugged reliable connection • Video outputs – support for LVDS output to VGA, NTSC or PAL • Standard computing platform – 100
percent PC-compatible to leverage existing software and programmer skills • Performance – processing power and memory to handle applications • Integrated graphics – high resolution for local displays
Power, a limiting factor Power is perhaps the most limiting factor in mobile technology. Wearable computing presents particular variations of this problem. The challenges faced when designing a product for military use are substantially different than the challenges when designing a consumer-market device. Power distribution is less of a concern for most wearable military applications because the computer unit provides power for display and I/O interfaces directly. In a consumer device, wearable computers are often part of either clothes or accessories. In target
military applications, all components are powered from the embedded computer, i.e., HMD and keyboard power is provided directly by the computer platform. If a system’s battery life falls short of mission duration, its usefulness is diminished. One solution is to use larger power supplies with chemical batteries, which are relatively long-lasting compared to rechargeable options. However, while rechargeable batteries are more environmentally friendly, they require maintenance to ensure performance when you need it, which can be a problem. Alternatively, improving power efficiency
increases how long a system can be used without having to worry about replacing or recharging batteries. In military applications, ensuring eight-plus hours is the norm.
Heat dissipation When specifying processors for wearable computers, MIPS per watt is a much more important parameter than raw processing
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