Vicor Minis Drive a Mobility Platform
It’s not “plastics” anymore. The latest buzzword is two words: “mobility platform.” They’ve been applied to robots, cell phones, pagers, PCs – palm, pocket, laptop – and even to wheelchairs. Nevertheless, it has serious meaning for those in the military, the public safety sector, and even for enterprises such as commercial fishing. Wherever real-time voice, video, and data communications are needed, it’s important that a rugged, reliable, and portable system be available to provide it.
Our customer produces rugged, waterproof, integrated PC-based mobility platforms for a number of Special Forces. The underlying function of these platforms is to provide the elements of C 4 ISR (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance) to the user. One system, for example, has two major elements: (1) a command and control user interface containing computing platforms and application software to manage data, video, radio, and power, and (2) a power distribution and management system.
Element (2) contains the unit with Vicor modules. Each of four wide-input-range Vicor DC-DC converters from the 24 V input (18 V to 36 V) Mini family deliver 36 V at 200 W to the power distribution module in a tactical system integration network. The application benefits, of course, from the low-noise ZCS/ZVS (Zero Current Switching/Zero Voltage Switching) architecture and fully encapsulated modules. A proprietary spin fill process ensures complete, void free encapsulation making them suitable for the most harsh environments.
For this application, however, the most important reasons for the choice of Vicor modules were their small size and high power density.
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