Heat-free in AI applications with the NRU-156U3-FT AI controller from Acceed

June 23, 2025 - PRLog -- Edge AI applications often mean that the hardware used is housed in tightly dimensioned enclosures, ducts or narrow boxes. Enclosures are unavoidable to protect against environmental influences, but air circulation and thus cooling suffer just as inevitably. The NRU-156U3-FT AI controller from Acceed now scores points with a new fanless chassis design for installation in confined spaces with reduced airflow and simultaneous operation at high ambient temperatures. The full-surface, flat heat sink maximises cooling efficiency across the entire top of the housing, enabling efficient heat dissipation even with reduced air circulation. The robust embedded PC has six USB interfaces (3.2) and is designed for operation at ambient temperatures from -25 to +60 °C.

The new NRU-156U3-FT is a compact, fanless box PC that is specially equipped with the Jetson Orin NX for the targeted edge AI applications. Six USB 3.2 ports are available on the front for connecting cameras, for example. The special feature of the extremely compact controller is its special flat heat sink (flat top). This new development significantly increases the cooling efficiency and makes the controller ideal for installation in closed housings, ducts and narrow installation locations without air circulation. This facilitates applications in areas such as metal processing, the food industry, AI-supported agriculture or in vehicles, where devices need to be particularly protected from dust, metal particles or moisture.

The controller in a compact all-metal housing uses the energy-saving Jetson Orin NX from Nvidia, bundled with JetPack 5.1.1, and offers an inference performance of up to 100 TOPS with a power consumption of 25W. The usual cooling fins have been replaced by a large heat sink mounted directly on the housing. The large heat-conducting surface of the flat heat sink efficiently dissipates the heat generated inside the device to the outside surface, allowing operation in a wide temperature range from -25 to +60 °C and thus significantly expanding the possible application scenarios. Other features include an M.2 socket Gen4 for connecting an NVMe SSD and standard serial interfaces. The DisplayPort video output supports a resolution of 3840 x 2160 pixels.

In addition to the hardware, the Nvidia system comes with a wide range of AI tools and the latest deep learning frameworks. The new NRU-156U3-FT is the cost-effective answer to current performance requirements of edge AI, especially when it comes to cramped and poorly ventilated installation situations at high ambient temperatures.