Automated elements placement on a printed circuit board of electronic device based on the ant algorithm taking into account the thermal compatibility criterion

Аuthors

Suzdaltsev I. V.

Kazan National Research Technical University named after A.N. Tupolev, Kazan, Russia

e-mail: iliasuzd@mail.ru

Abstract

One of the current issues for modern aviation and space onboard electronics design is providing their normal thermal conditions, ensuring all components operate within the permissible temperature range. This issue is conditioned by the large number of components with high heat dissipation power, which are densely packed within the onboard electronics housing. One way to reduce component temperatures is its optimal positioning on the printed circuit board (PCB) mounting area, maximizing heat flow between the components. Therefore, optimal PCB placement, taking into account thermal compatibility criteria, is essential.
The article considers the formulation of the problem of elements placement on a printed circuit board of an electronic device. The constraints and criteria for this optimization problem is described. To ensure normal thermal conditions of the printed circuit board, thermal compatibility criterion is proposed to take into account. The criteria of the problem solution quality is the maximum temperature of an element among all the elements placed on the printed circuit board. The temperature of the elements on the board is determined based on the solution of the heat balance equation. The ant algorithm for solving the problem of elements placement on a printed circuit board is described. The sequence of solution graph vertices in the path formed by the ant colony determines the sequence of elements placement on the printed circuit board and thus corresponds to a solution option for the placement problem. As part of the computational experiments, a decrease in the maximum temperature of elements on the printed circuit board of an electronic device was estimated depending on the number of the best path constructing stage by the ant colony, with different thermal conductivity between the elements and the air environment. The results of computational experiments on the study of the ant algorithm efficiency for solving the problem of elements placement on the printed circuit board of electronic devices are presented. The experiments showed the efficiency of the ant algorithm, namely: optimal elements placement on the printed circuit board of the electronic device allows to reduce the maximum temperature of the elements.

Keywords:

elements placement, printed circuit board, electronic device, ant algorithm, thermal compatibility, Pareto set, concession method

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