Innovative and Affordable Materials/Concepts for Improving Rotorcraft Slip Ring Reliability

In Phase I Diamond Antenna proposed to use Roll-Ring® technology and create a form, fit, and function Roll-Ring® replacement for the V22 slip ring. Unlike slip rings with a sliding electrical interface, Roll-Rings® employ a rolling, non-sliding, electrical interface. The rolling, non-sliding, interface is a non-wearing, metal-to-metal, electrical interface that does not generate wear particles. Because there is virtually no wear, the Roll-Ring® is expected to meet the 10,000-hour operating requirement and the 3000-hour MTBF requirement. Phase I concluded with a high power demonstration of 200 A and an extremely low noise (resistance variation over rotation) of < 1 milliohm. This demonstration illustrated the potential of Diamond’s coupler contact technology for very clean, high power transfer performance. Diamond Antenna in conjunction with our Phase I sponsor and building upon the work of our Phase I program plans to further the maturation of this technology. This will include finalizing the design of the Roll-Ring® and couplers, identifying the failure modes and associated risks of this technology, fabricating a reduced channel count channel prototype to fit within the existing slip ring envelope, and demonstrating the capabilities (signal transfer as well as reliability).