Materials Technologies Corporation — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: N211-096

Description

Weapon platforms have a complex infrastructure of on-board electronic devices that control every critical function, from propulsion to guidance to weapon launch, and consequently a vast maze of Cu conductor wires and fiberoptic cables that power these devices through an intricate network of interconnections.  These wires and cables are all encased in safety sheaths to protect them from routine handling, shorting, and accidental damages. Yet many other wires and cables need additional protection from system generated electromagnetic pulses (SGEMP) and single event phenomena (SEP) such as nuclear events which could create surges that are large enough to disable the device. Such protection is currently made possible by highly labor-intensive processes to form gap-free encasement around the wire/cable that ensures radiation hardening. These legacy manufacturing processes leave room for improvement in both efficient cable producibility as well as replication in batch production. With many hundreds of these RH cables in a single platform such as SSBN submarine, their procurement as well as lifecycle repair/replacement maintenance costs are unacceptably high. Materials Technologies proposes RHODIUM, an innovative cable manufacturing process that automates the most labor-intensive steps in harness fabrication. The proposed concept is based on MTC’s patented 2nd generation WIN system (TRL 7) for harness manufacture and our prototyped PLAID system (TRL 5) for cable tracking inside Navy’s aircraft and ship/sub platforms. (1) Termination time is reduced by 90%+, from 3-7 minutes by legacy methods to <10 seconds per wire by WIN. (2) Legacy production methods suffer from 8-12% wire mis-insertion errors. A built-in auto-diagnostic mechanism in the proposed RHODIUM will ensure that each wire is terminated into its designated connector pin-out. Termination errors will thus be eliminated. Finally, (3) an innovative method is proposed for long-term connector backshell sealing to provide RH protection for Interconnections. Cable producibility and replicability goals will thus be achieved at substantially lower unit cost while improving SGEMP and SEP protection. Ergonomic features similar to WIN system will be implemented to prevent workplace injuries. RHODIUM will be constructed with open architecture to allow future processing technology upgrades with new SOTA components. A fully functional TRL 7 prototype RHODIUM will be delivered in 18-21 months for independent SSP validation.