Periscope Antenna Active Cooling

The increased complexity of periscope antennas requires the need for advanced cooling methods capable of reaching 20°C and extracting 150-200 watts of thermal load, while fitting in the tight confines of a periscope base. Current convective and conductive cooling approaches have proved inadequate at dissipating the thermal load generated by the antennas, a problem further complicated by the fact that the antenna radome is a poor thermal conductor. This may lead to the premature failure of heat sensitive components. The typical external radome ambient temperature, to which heat from the periscope base is being rejected, is 50°C. TIAX LLC is proposing the development of a miniature-scale Stirling cycle active cooling system that could well fit in the available confined periscope antenna base space and can provide the required cooling load at the desired temperature. The Stirling cooling cycle is a closed thermodynamic cycle in reverse of a Stirling engine cycle for power generation. Stirling cycle coolers have been used for decades to provide cooling temperatures down to the cryogenic temperature range for various applications.