Underwater ROV Design and Component Selection

Underwater ROVs need to obey the same reliability standards as other high-performance, high uptime products like aerospace and military systems. High reliability is all about component selection and designing boards that are fully manufacturable while keeping a system safe. The DFM features, supply chain tools, and design verification engine in Altium Designer give underwater ROV builders a complete package for electronics design and fabrication. When you’re designing systems for an ROV, pay attention to these component selections and layout guidelines to keep your system reliable.

ALTIUM DESIGNER^®

The industry’s best EDA platform for electronics design for high-reliability applications like underwater ROVs.

Harsh environments demand accurate and reliable designs, and it all starts at the board and component levels. If you can spot the right components and create a high-quality layout, you can rest assured your board will be defect-free and will operate reliably in its intended environment. Underwater ROV design is one area where systems need to be built to high-reliability standards, such as IPC 6012 Class 3 or military performance standards. However, there aren’t many designers that are active in this area, and it can be difficult to spot reliability problems before a system is deployed in its intended environment.

Because designs like underwater ROVs come with stringent performance and design standards, you’ll need to select the best set of components that can withstand extreme temperatures, high pressure, and long operational timelines. There are also simple choices you can make that will maximize your product’s reliability and prevent premature failure of your system. Altium Designer can help you in all of these areas and many more with the best set of supply chain, manufacturing, and layout features the industry can offer.

Selecting Components for Underwater ROV Systems

Hydrostatic pressure in an underwater ROV is the primary mechanism that can destroy electronic components. In the worst case, components can implode under high pressure, so packaging becomes an important criterion for component selection. The packaging will determine the depth to which an underwater ROV can be deployed and will limit component selection to specific parts.

Altium’s Supply Chain Tools Help You Find Components

Only Altium Designer gives you complete supply chain visibility and helps you find the parts you need for your underwater ROV boards. Once you’ve tested and qualified components for your underwater ROV, the Manufacturer Part Search Panel in Altium Designer helps you source your components and access CAD models for your PCB layout. You can design the best circuit boards for unique applications like underwater ROVs in Altium Designer.

• Make sure you choose the most rugged components that can withstand high pressure when designing electronics for high-pressure environments.

  Learn more about designing electronics for high-pressure environments.

• Your PCB and components for an underwater ROV will need to live in a unique enclosure, and you’ll need accurate STEP models to ensure your board will fit in its enclosure.

  Learn more about importing and using STEP models for your components.

• Build high-quality underwater ROV PCBs and select the best pressure-tolerant components with the Manufacturer Part Search Panel in Altium Designer.

  Learn more about using the Manufacturer Part Search Panel in Altium Designer.

Quickly find parts for your underwater ROV with the Manufacturer Part Search Panel in Altium Designer.

Design Reliable Circuit Board Layouts in Altium Designer

Building any reliable board is all about ensuring your design fits within your particular group of standards. Reliability is critical in underwater ROVs, and reliability extends beyond component selection. Circuit boards in underwater ROV electronics will experience temperature extremes, high pressures, and possibly high electrical demands (such as in power supplies/converters).

Underwater ROV circuit boards need to be designed to exact standards, such as IPC 6012 Class 3, SAE, or MIL-PRF standards. Make sure to define your relevant standards as design rules in your circuit board layout and routing tools. This helps ensure reliability in your design and lets you check your layout against design rules quickly. Once you’ve created a reliable circuit board layout for your underwater ROV, you’ll need to complete your manufacturing documentation to ensure your system is fabricated without defects.

Altium Designer Makes Design and Manufacturing Preparation Easy

Preparing for manufacturing should be simple and shouldn’t require an external set of fabrication tools. Altium Designer provides a complete design and fabrication preparation experience in a single application. Altium Designer will instantly take data from your PCB layout and create your manufacturing deliverables automatically. In addition to creating your manufacturing files, Altium Designer helps you source components for your circuit board by giving you pricing and component stock data from major distributors.

• Underwater ROV boards can be ceramics or metal-core PCBs, which will ensure high reliability and mechanical stability during operation.

  Learn more about designing circuit boards from exotic materials.

• Your board needs to be designed to comply with important DFM rules to ensure it can be put into standard PCB manufacturing processes.

  Learn more about the PCB manufacturing process.

• Once you’ve created your PCB layout, prepare it for manufacturing with Altium Designer’s complete set of documentation tools.

  Learn more about the manufacturing documentation features in Altium Designer.

An underwater ROV circuit board.

Use Rules-Driven Design to Ensure Reliability

As you work through your circuit board layout, how can you ensure your board complies with design standards and will be reliable once deployed? Circuit board design tools with an online DRC engine will check your layout against design reliability standards. This helps you stay productive and gives you control over your design standards as you build your board.

Use the Comprehensive Set of PCB Design Features in Altium Designer

With the complete set of PCB design features in Altium Designer, it’s easy to prepare an underwater ROV board for production in an integrated design environment. Everything needed for front-end component selection and schematic design is accessible in the same application as your physical design and layout tools. Finally, you have everything needed to prepare a standard file package for fabrication and assembly.

• Altium Designer’s rules-driven design engine gives you access to everything needed for underwater ROV design in a single program.

  Learn more about Altium Designer’s unified environment.

• Altium Designer’s integrated user interface keeps you productive and gives you access to a complete set of PCB design features in a single program.

  Learn more about the complete set of design tools in Altium Designer.

• You can store, share, and access your component data with the Altium 365 platform, the industry’s only cloud-based platform for PCB design collaboration.

  Learn more about managing and sharing design data with Altium 365.

Design high-quality layouts in a single program with Altium Designer

When you need to design circuit boards for an underwater ROV, you need the complete set of layout, routing, sourcing, and fabrication features in Altium Designer. Everything needed to create high-quality, reliable circuit board layouts are included in Altium Designer, the industry’s best circuit board design application.

Altium Designer on Altium 365 delivers unprecedented integration to the electronics industry until now relegated to the world of software development, allowing designers to work from home and reach unprecedented levels of efficiency.

We have only scratched the surface of what is possible to do with Altium Designer on Altium 365. You can check the product page for a more in-depth feature description or one of the On-Demand Webinars.