Researchers seek thermal management for smart phones under heavy sensor processing loads inside closed cars

WASHINGTON – U.S. Intelligence researchers are asking industry to find new ways of cooling smart phones and other small mobile devices to prevent damage to them from heat generated by heavy use, as well as from the solar heat in parked vehicles.

Officials of the U.S. Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency (IARPA) in Washington issued a request for information on Friday (IARPA-BAA-19-02) for the Portable Electronic Cooling (PEC) project to shield mobile devices from heat when they function as sensors and sensor networks.

The sensor processing power and number of sensors available on smart phones is increasing exponentially, such that modern smart phones can function as microphones, cameras, proximity sensors, ambient light sensors, motion sensors, gyroscopes, accelerometers, digital compasses, thermometers, humidity sensors, barometers, heart rate monitors, pulse oximeters, laser range finders, barcode scanners, and Geiger counters, IARPA officials explain.

Additionally, the intrinsic connectivity, processing power, and proliferation of specialized apps and smart phone-compatible software enables the smart phone to function to act as a component of distributed and mobile sensing networks.

Related: Keeping cool with hot electronics

Yet using smart phones for data processing, data streaming, and positioning can place a significant thermal management burden on the smart phone’s electronics -- especially when the phone operates in challenging ambient conditions like a vehicle parked in the sun, where temperatures can climb quickly to between 114 and 170 degrees Fahrenheit.

The internal temperature of a smart phone under steady use, moreover, can be significantly hotter than the ambient temperature. Even a powered-off smart phone inside a parked car can sustain irreversible battery damage at temperatures over 120 F, and at temperatures approaching 170 degrees Fahrenheit the battery may rupture, catch fire, or even explode, leading to destruction of the phone, its sensors, and even the vehicle itself.

To help solve this problem, IARPA officials are asking industry to develop aesthetically complimentary form factor approaches to cool mobile devices like smart phones to mitigate the internal heat load from the device’s electronics, and shield the device from ambient temperatures as hot as 170 F.

If proposed cooling solutions require power, the power cannot tap the phone’s battery. IARPA researchers are encouraging cooling solutions that do not use power.

Related: Thermal management is a large and growing pain point for military circuit board manufacturers

IARPA researchers want a cooling solution small enough for a G5 Plus or Samsung Galaxy S8+ smart phone while running an application over the cellular network that uses consistent network bandwidth of at least 1.5 megabits per second and placed in a 170 F environment for eight hours without causing the phone to overheat or shut down.

This cooling approach may be single-use disposable, or multi-use. If multi-use, IARPA officials want to know the process to reset and recharge the smart phone.

Companies interested should email .PDF responses no later than 14 Jan. 2019 to [email protected]. Email questions or concerns to IARPA's Kristin DeWitt at the same address.

More information is online at https://www.fbo.gov/notices/7da7a2aab349b91345205f39bac55b89.

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