The term “Ruggedization” refers to designs that are tested at high temperatures with high yield fallout. Rugged sub-systems and systems are built to withstand the harshest environments. Ruggedization involves reinforcing the hardware to endure extreme temperatures, moisture, dust, vibrations, and physical shocks. Techniques used in ruggedization include using robust materials, implementing protective enclosures, and applying conformal coatings to shield sensitive components. Rugged systems designed are constructed so as not to fail under the most difficult operating conditions. Rugged Designs or Ruggedization is done built to withstand one or more conditions typically found in harsh environments like excessively temperatures, moisture and high/low pressure, mechanical vibration or shock, electrical discharge at high voltage/ current and particle matter such as dust. For truly Rugged Designs or Ruggedization of boards and systems, they need to be designed for harsh environment from the ground up. To ensure ruggedization, special attention and care needs to be given to component selection; circuit design; printed circuit board (PCB) thickness, layout, and materials; thermal solutions; enclosure and mechanical design; and manufacturing process for ensuring Rugged System Design.

Product Ruggedization Services

Mistral’s is an embedded product and industrial design company offering development of custom industrial and rugged designs and enclosures keeping in mind aesthetics, durability, ruggedization, EMI/EMC protection, safety compliance and product cost. We use best-in-class ruggedization techniques to ensure that products designed by us operate reliably in extremes of temperature, shock, vibration, and environment. To address the requirements of our aerospace and defense customers, our industrial and rugged designs offer standard hardware architectures which include VPX, OpenVPX, VXS, VME and other VITA and PICMG standards and custom, non-standard hardware. Our industrial design and rugged system design services address the four key characteristics of ruggedization: Shock, vibration, temperature, and ingress protection (IP).

Mistral has the latest, state-of-the-art 3D CAD systems for industrial and rugged designs, as well as a variety of equipment and tools for mechanical analysis and testing. As an Industrial Design company, we use the best available methodologies and techniques to ensure that our rugged product designs operate reliably in extremes of temperature, shock, vibration, & environment. Our partnerships with leading manufacturing and environmental testing facilities help us achieve quick turnaround and adhere to strict quality control processes as specified by ISO 9001 and AS9100D standards. Mistral’s product rugged design services includes analysis of thermal and vibration in the initial design stages by computer simulation.  

Rugged Designs

Mistral’s industrial and rugged system design or ruggedization services for aerospace and defense applications incorporate the latest air, conduction and AFT techniques to help optimize performance, conform to ATR standards like ½ ATR, ¾ ATR, 1 ATR and support a variety of thermal management methods. To ensure our systems perform reliably for long periods of time and  in extreme environments, we put extensive time and effort into rigorous thermal testing and analysis.

Our team of experienced engineers with their knowledge and capability in design tools and ruggedization techniques ensure delivery of Industrial and rugged designs optimized for functionality and manufacturability. Thermal management is one of the key requirements for ruggedization or rugged designs, specifically for aerospace and defense applications that require high processing power. Our rugged system design and ruggedization process is based on shock, vibration, temperature and Ingress Protection. To cater to the rugged needs of the consumer market, we offer industrial and rugged designs that are FCC/CE compliant and meet key product considerations like styling and appearance, EMI/EMC protection, thermal cooling for internal components, ruggedization for drop shock and environmental stress, safety compliance and ease of assembly.