Products for Rugged Environments

Rugged products need to be developed with a clear understanding of the operational environments in which they will be used and the usage challenges that they will have to endure.

In use, rugged equipment will typically be subjected to high impact and vibration loadings. Added to this are environmental challenges such as extremes of temperature and humidity – often with large diurnal variations – and the need to seal against water and particulate ingress.

Building and testing rigs early in the development cycle will confirm the capability of the proposed design in each of these areas and help us to manage the development risk.

Misuse and abuse

As well as planned usage situations, products need to be able to cope with abuse conditions.

Through research we can identify known abuse cases and predict others. Product requirements to tackle this abuse can be identified and included in the specification so that we can design and test appropriate counter measures.

Unpredictable abuse can be accommodated by ensuring that products are easy to service and straightforward to repair and include error recovery solutions, while smart products will include diagnostic and telemetry systems to remotely report on their status.

Security and defence

Security and defence equipment faces some of the toughest environmental and usage challenges imaginable. And in many cases reliability is literally a matter of life or death.

Products for this arena must be intuitive to use, resistant to misuse, easy to service and straightforward to repair in the field. They must withstand impact and vibration in use and during transportation to theatre. And they must operate reliably, even when they have been stored dormant for prolonged periods.