Acoustic Camera Integrated Housing Passive Cooling
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Solution Overview
Problem
Acoustic cameras require effective passive heat sinking due to constraints on size, weight, and noise limitations, as well as the need for continuous operation without active cooling solutions, which existing technologies fail to address efficiently.
Innovation Solution
An integrated metal heat sink with a large effective area, potentially incorporating ribs for enhanced heat dissipation, and a mechanical spring structure to maintain thermal contact with the onboard processor, ensuring efficient heat transfer to the outer housing while maintaining robustness and ingress protection.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Object-generated harmful factors
If passive cooling is used, then noise is reduced and continuous operation is enabled, but heat dissipation capability is limited
Solution Approach 1:
The housing structure is merged with the heat sink function, where the housing itself serves as both protective enclosure and thermal dissipation component. The processor is thermally coupled to the housing through thermal interface material, combining structural and thermal management functions into a single integrated system that eliminates noise from active cooling while maintaining heat dissipation capability
Solution Approach 2:
The housing structure performs self-cooling by utilizing its own mass and surface area for heat dissipation. The metal housing acts as a heat sink that passively dissipates heat from the processor to the surrounding environment through natural convection and radiation, enabling the system to cool itself without external active cooling components
2Reliability
If onboard processing is increased, then data protection and bandwidth efficiency are improved, but heat generation increases
Solution Approach 1:
The thermal management function is extracted from the processor package and implemented at the system level through the housing structure. By separating the computational function (processor) from the thermal dissipation function (housing), the design enables high-power onboard processing while managing heat at the system level through passive radiation and convection surfaces
3Volume of moving object
If housing size is reduced, then portability and installation flexibility are improved, but heat dissipation area is reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The housing structure utilizes local quality variations through rib features and surface geometry optimization. Specific regions of the housing are designed with enhanced surface area ( ribs, fins, or geometric features) to maximize heat dissipation in critical thermal zones while maintaining overall compact dimensions, allowing localized heat management without increasing overall device volume
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The solution effectively dissipates heat from the onboard processor, maintaining the camera's functionality and reducing the risk of overheating, with a closed metal casing design that improves ingress protection and allows for continuous operation without noise-producing active cooling systems.
Implementation Method 1
a solution is found to transfer the heat efficiently from the compute unit, through a metal heat spreader and part of the inner structure to the outer housing
Implementation Method 2
a mechanical spring structure to maintain thermal contact with the onboard processor
Data Source
AI summary
Improved passive heat sinking of acoustic cameras having a microphone array and onboard processor is provided. The onboard processor is heat sunk using a heat sink member within a sealed enclosure to conduct heat to a heat dissipation surface of the enclosure. Preferably the heat sink member is mostly a spring member having the dual functions of providing mechanical force to ensure good thermal contact with the onboard processor and providing heat conduction to the heat dissipation surface. A single enclosure can enclose both the onboard processor and the microphone array. Alternatively, the enclosure can have two parts, a first part enclosing the microphone array, and a second part enclosing the onboard processor.