96 Focus | Connectors As more connector companies provide complete cable assemblies, factories are being built that are larger and more spacious to provide room for tasks such as stripping wires, gently twisting pairs, fitting heat shrinks and performing soldering or crimping as needed. These processes are largely carried out by hand, although a small but growing proportion of crimping is automated via machine. However, it is typical, even in large-volume connector factories, for upwards of 95% of crimping to be done with standards-based hand tools, especially for military customers who may seek certifications such as the IPC Class 3 rating for highly reliable electronics, and for other customers who appreciate that good crimps take intuitive manual twisting of wires in specific ways, as well as visual checks of every contact. Additionally, plastic overmoulding, which involves a controlled injection of rubber or plastic to seal, house and bond the connector with the cable, has long been performed by machines in a consistent way. While most wire-related tasks are performed manually, connector-specific manufacturing can be automated, except when order volumes are too small to justify reprogramming the machinery. Otherwise, machines are used extensively for integrating pins into contact blocks, turning or bending metals into housings and backshells, and other processes. Some companies anticipate using additive manufacturing (AM) in future batch-production approaches, particularly as AM machines become larger, to enable the printing of hundreds or potentially thousands of contact block or shell parts per print cycle. These, and other connectormanufacturing steps and machinery, must be arranged in a highly guided way, including controlled movement of parts between machines by automated guided vehicles or autonomous mobile robots to ensure dozens of different connector products can be made simultaneously and at scale every day (this also enables traceability and QC over where parts have been or are going). Given the importance of QC to ensure identical batches of connectors, production lines typically close with end-of-line qualification-testing processes. These can include visual inspections of each unit by human officers, manual checks such as plugging in every connector’s male and female counterparts to affirm mateability (and that locking systems are functioning), and more detailed inspections such as electrical tests for ensuring pin-to-pin connections work correctly. The latter types of tests can also measure electrical properties such as impedance or resistivity, particularly if the complexity of a product or its intended use-case merit doing so, or if the customer requests it, although these might be carried out on just one unit in 10, or one in 100, rather than every unit. Transmitting forwards It is well known that effectively zero connector companies supply solely to the uncrewed vehicle space; given the ubiquitous need for connectivity, manufacturers typically serve a wide range of applications, including medical, military, motorsport, marine and consumer electronics. As a result, connector suppliers are particularly well-insulated against shocks affecting any one industry, and can draw from many types of partners and their perspectives, particularly for developing innovations that may carry over from one space to another. Future connector architectures and standards for the uncrewed space are likely to be influenced by emerging successes among medical and marine robotics, as well as by how systems are miniaturised for the consumer market, ruggedised for the harshness of motorsport, and made workable even in dangerous and stressful environments for soldiers’ wearables, as they have been for years. Going forwards, advancements in the IoT space, empowering connectivity to support emerging uses of 5G, AI and new cloud-computing applications can be expected to spur fresh waves of smart connectors, signal protocols, and intuitive design and testing tools. All of these innovations will serve to make connector customers and suppliers, as well as every stage of the production process, feel more closely connected. Acknowledgements The author would like to thank Andrea Coller of Fischer Connectors, Richard Johannes and Steven Lassen of LEMO, Ryan Smart of Harwin, Travis Neumann of Omnetics and Fadi Mishriky of Battlefield International for their help in researching this article. February/March 2025 | Uncrewed Systems Technology It is common at the end of the production line to see visual inspections of each connector unit by a human officer, as well as mechanical and electrical testing (Image courtesy of LEMO)
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