Interconnects For Unmanned Systems and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

By all accounts, unmanned systems in general, and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) in particular, are expected to see significant growth in the next ten years. The military market will account for the majority the UAV sales and sales growth.

The most common types of Unmanned Systems include:

• UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles that operate in the air)
• UGVs (Unmanned Ground Vehicles that operate on the ground
• USVs (Unmanned Surface Vehicles that float on water)
• UUVs (Unmanned Underwater Vehicles that operate below the water’s surface)

The list of possible requirements for interconnects in unmanned systems continues to grow and now includes RF, sealed/circulars, rugged, high shock-and-vibration, and an increasing demand for high bandwidth and higher density, among others.

Samtec’s micro rugged, power, RF, and high-speed interconnects meet the demanding performance requirements for commercial and military unmanned systems and autonomous vehicles.  But you probably assumed that, otherwise I wouldn’t be writing about applications that Samtec can’t support!

Samtec products that are popular with our unmanned systems customers:

• Tiger Eye™ High Reliability Board-to-Board:
  • SFML / TFML (latching systems)
  • SFM / TFM series
• Rugged Discrete Wire:
  • SFSD / TFM series (1.27 mm pitch; latching and locking options)
  • S2SD / T2M series (2.00 mm pitch; latching, locking, and screw-down options)
  • MMSS, MMSD, IPL1 series (2.54 mm pitch; latching and locking options)
• Rugged High Speed Board-to-Board:
  • QMS / QFS series (rugged high speed, with integral ground/power planes)
  • ERM8 / QRF8 series (high speed with rugged Edge Rate® contacts)
• Rugged Micro:
  • Razor Beam™ and Razor Beam -LP (space saving, micro, rugged)
• RF:
  • U.FL and W.FL series high frequency microwave connectors and cable assemblies
  • SMA series
• High Speed Cable Systems:
  • These rugged high speed cable assemblies are available with a variety of connector types, with screw-downs, latching, and locking options.
• Power:
  • PowerStrip™ Systems:  Small form factor, blade contact systems
  • IPT1 / IPS1 and IPBT / IPBS series:  individually shrouded board-to-board