Electronic Power and Thermal Management:A Critical Engineering Challenge for Next-Generation Unmanned Systems

Unmanned vehicles have risen to a prominent role in military operations worldwide, and the trend for the next decade is toward even more complex systems, with increasing capabilities for guidance control, weaponry and surveillance. Highly complex systems require integrating a large number of electrical components within a very limited space. This creates challenges for power and thermal management not seen in previous generations of electronic systems.

To be successful, plans must incorporate advanced power and thermal management strategies from the earliest stages of the design process and assess power and thermal issues across scales from the component to the system. This paper presents a comprehensive set of tools and methodologies that can contribute to addressing the challenges of thermal and power management encountered in these systems.