Flexible Integrated Thermal System (FITS)

Modern sensors often require very precise heat management to ensure the accuracy and repeatability of that sensor’s measurements. Current state of the art cooling systems require large amounts of power to maintain sensor temperature because they are constantly using active systems to regulate the temperature. Additionally, they are often custom built systems for one-off applications. There are many examples of heat pipe based cooling systems that remove heat from a Printed Circuit Board (PCB) level chip and reject the heat to the atmosphere. These systems require rigid pipes and must be carefully designed to be compatible with the sensors. Semi-active systems such as Variable Conduction Heat Pipes (VCHP) exist however they always need to be customized to the application. VCHPs offer a power free way to regulate temperature but require factory calibration in order to change the temperature set point. A Thermal management system that allows for easy integration with many different sensor geometries as well as being adaptable to different environmental conditions is required. To meet the Navy’s SBIR Objective, Mayflower is proposing a Flexible Integrated Thermal System (FITS) which will allow easy integration with different sensor geometries while combining active and passive solutions to minimize power draw.