SAN DIEGO, Calif., 11 Jan. 2008. AP Labs Inc. has been selected to develop a Thermal Electric Cooled ATR Chassis to meet the needs of the U.S. military's next-generation vehicles that are intended for use by the Future Combat Systems program.

Future Combat Systems (FCS) is the Army's modernization program, which includes manned and unmanned system platforms connected by a common command-and-control network. It is designed to provide military personnel with leading-edge technologies and capabilities in challenging environments.

High-performance embedded computers generate a great deal of heat and these boards present great challenges to the capabilities of conventional air cooling systems. The solution, Thermal Electric Cooling (TEC), is based on the Peltier Effect.

The AP Labs Thermal Electric Cooled ATR chassis is a 3/4-long ruggedized VME enclosure designed for five slots of 6U VME64X or cPCI boards. This chassis is designed for tough environments and enables the use of air-cooled boards in a sealed environment.

This unit will not only withstand temperature extremes, shock, vibration, humidity, and dust, but is also designed to withstand exposure to high-pressure sprays, such as those seen by vehicles passing through a tank wash.

The cooling unit consists of a cold plate, a thermo-electric module, multiple heat sinks, and a fan to assist heat rejection. The cold surface faces the inside of the chassis and the hot side is exposed to the external environment. The thermo-electric module carries the heat from the cold plate to the heat sink. The internal fan drives cold air over the circuit cards and through the card cage as the external fan helps airflow over the external heat sink to assist in the dissipation of heat.