By Josh Perry, Editor
[email protected]

According to a report from MilitaryAerospace.com, officials at the U.S. Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency (IARPA), based in Washington, D.C., are reaching out to industry experts for information on cooling smartphones when they are used as sensors or in sensor networks and exposed to solar heat.

IARPA is seeking proposals for smartphone thermal management. (Wikimedia Commons)

The Portable Electronic Cooling (PEC) project wants to protect smartphones that are under heavy processor loads from their multiple sensor capabilities (e.g. microphones, cameras, motions sensors, thermometers, etc.) and from being part of a distributed sensing network.

In addition, the project wants to find a thermal management solution for phones that are left in vehicles and are affected by solar heat.

“The internal temperature of a smart phone under steady use, moreover, can be significantly hotter than the ambient temperature,” the article explained. “Even a powered-off smart phone inside a parked car can sustain irreversible battery damage at temperatures over 120°F, and at temperatures approaching 170°F the battery may rupture, catch fire, or even explode, leading to destruction of the phone, its sensors, and even the vehicle itself.”

IARPA researchers want a solution for a smart phone that runs on a network bandwith of at least 1.5 megabits per second and in a 170°F environment for at least eight hours without overheating or shutting down.

Read the full proposal at https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&tab=core&id=7da7a2aab349b91345205f39bac55b89.