Aerospace & Defense Technology - June 2022 - 15

Aircraft Technology
Unconstrained vibration causes wear
and potential failure on all electronic
connections, add-in cards, memory
DIMMs, heat sinks, and power supply
components. Appropriate design techniques
include finely tuned finite element
simulations to identify problematic
harmonics in the chassis design and
mitigate through combinations of strategic
strengthening, tie downs, constraints,
and bonding.
These chassis ruggedizations must be
done efficiently to not sacrifice the
overall weight and size requirements of
edge applications. For military applications
this means designing and testing
to appropriate MIL-STD-810G profiles
and selecting the appropriate materials
and manufacturing techniques. Designs
using milled aluminum frames can provide
localized rigidity to avoid key resonance
modes where required while
keeping the size and weight minimized.
Temperature
When moving out of the data center,
designing for unstable temperature conditions
also presents difficult design
problems when trying to take advantage
of the latest technology components
used to deliver uncompromising
AI capability. The challenge is compounded
with the fact that high-performance
components that deliver the
most value to AI generate a huge
amount of heat themselves because of
the power they require. The latest AI-focused
GPUs consume up to 500W of
power each, with next generation GPUs
projected to increase power consumption
to 700W. Other key components in
these systems including CPUs, memory,
and switch chips also generate significant
heat. For long-term reliable operation,
these components must be kept
within their respective operating temperature
thresholds.
Tactical theater environments can
vary from extreme cold to extreme hot
ambient temperatures. Additionally,
changes in altiude and humidity can
impact the efficiency of cooling strategies.
Different applications will also
have different cooling infrastructures in
which they will reside with air, liquid,
or plenum cooling as options. Plug-andplay
air-cooled systems include orchesAerospace
& Defense Technology, June 2022
Iteration = 147
-142.857
-285.714
-428.571
-571.429
-714.286
-857.143
-1000.000
-1142.857
-1285.714
-1428.571
-1571.429
-1714.286
-1857.143
-2000.000
Velocity (Z) [ft/min]
Global coordinate system
Cut Plot 1: contours
Cut Plot 2: contours
Flow Trajectories 1
Iteration = 121
Figure 2. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) Airflow Study for Rigel Edge Supercomputer.
750.0001500.000
Velocity (X) [ft/min]
Global coordinate system
Mid Server Level Flow: contours
Cut Plot 6: contours
Figure 3 Cross-sectional Air Velocity Simulation for Rigel Edge Supercomputer.
tration of fans, baffling, heat sinks and
enclosure design to ensure the high-performance
components can operate efficiently
at maximum performance.
For edge applications with in-person
operation, the cooling design needs to
also accommodate human factors
including noise restrictions. While
undesirable, system integrators commonly
compromise the performance of
the system to achieve the cooling
requirements. Many systems deployed
in edge computing applications today
avoid use of the latest high-performance
components because they do
not have the ability to solve the cooling
issues.
mobilityengineeringtech.com
ADT Feature 3 - Aircraft Technology 0622_1.indd 15
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Input Power
A third area where system design for
high-performance edge AI differs significantly
from data center systems is
input power. Data centers often pride
themselves in providing reliable and
stable power, typically at 110-220 VAC.
Although edge systems can be capable
of supporting this standard input, many
AI transportable vehicles have power
sources which vary greatly in voltage
and frequency. Tactical terrestrial vehicles,
including mobile data centers, will
often provide DC power at a range of
voltages from 270V to 48V to 24V. In
some autonomous truck applications,
12 VDC is desirable.
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5/25/22 3:47 PM
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Aerospace & Defense Technology - June 2022

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