Military-Grade Personnel Tracker

We performed the engineering, prototype fabrication, and manufacturing of the NEON Indoor Location Service by TRX Systems. This military-grade equipment is the mobile component of a system that locates and tracks personnel in areas where GPS is denied or not available, such as indoors or underground. The project required a quick turnaround to meet strict deadlines, design requirements, and deliverables.

We performed the Industrial Design of the wearable electronic device to house and protect the sensitive internal electronics and meet stringent ruggedness and environmental criteria covering military, police, and fire applications. The device had to be waterproof, heat-resistant, and support a fully-equipped, 400lb (182kg) soldier or firefighter standing on it. Using a variety of prototyping techniques, we fabricated several rounds of prototype devices for testing. We then transitioned the design to injection molding and oversaw the inspection and modifications of parts for manufacturing.

One of the prototyping techniques we use was multi-material Polyet to deliver prototypes that simulated a button and gasket that would be overmolded in production. We were very happy with the results and our client was quite pleased that we were able to quickly iterate the design and transition nearly seamlessly into production tooling. The people at Desktop Engineering were also impressed and published an account of our experience, “Prototyping an Overmolded Power Button“.