Modular Rugged Tablet Platform Launched for Custom Hardware

Aaronia has launched a new series of rugged tablets designed as customizable hardware platforms for system integrators and providers of tailored mobile measurement, testing, and data acquisition systems.

Standard rugged devices often fail to satisfy all requirements of specialized applications, despite using durable housings to protect integrated electronics from severe environmental impacts. The Rugged Tablet platform addresses this gap by allowing engineering teams to integrate hardware components directly into a single, compact, field-ready complete system without relying on external enclosures, separate chargers, or trailing cabling.

At the center of the architecture is an integrated internal expansion slot measuring 100 × 189 × 25 mm. The slot is engineered to securely house custom sensors and hardware directly within the tablet housing. Integrators can incorporate specialized tools for measuring parameters such as particulate matter, atmospheric indicators, or radiation exposure. As an example application, the system can incorporate Sensirion’s SEN55 environmental sensor module to build a mobile field solution capable of monitoring particulate matter, volatile organic compounds, oxidizing gases such as NOx, temperature, and humidity.

The hardware platform is powered by an AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS notebook processor from the Hawk Point series, utilizing Zen 4 architecture with 8 cores and Hyper-Threading. The CPU operates at clock speeds between a 3.8 GHz base clock and a 5.1 GHz single-core boost, supported by an integrated AMD Radeon 780M GPU with 12 compute units running up to 2.7 GHz and an AV1 video engine. Equipped with 64 GB of LPDDR5x RAM, the tablet accommodates data-heavy operations, virtualization, graphics-intensive processing, and AI inference.

External connectivity features two 40 Gbit/s USB-C ports, three 10 Gbit/s USB-C PD ports with 15 W power delivery each, three USB-A 3.0 ports, and two USB-A 2.0 ports. Networking capabilities include two 2.5 Gbit/s RJ45 Ethernet ports alongside a 10 Gbit/s SFP+ port for optical signal transmission, complemented by an SD card reader, a serial RS232 interface, and an audio jack. Internal storage options consist of two M.2 2280 M-Key slots accepting NVMe SSDs up to 8 TB each, two M.2 2242 M-Key slots for NVMe SSDs up to 2 TB each, and additional M.2 2252 B-Key and M.2 2230 E-Key slots reserved for module expansions.

For outdoor visibility, the device features a 15.6-inch touchscreen display rated at 1,500 nits brightness. Power management relies on a dual-battery system containing one hot-swappable battery that can be exchanged during active operation. Fully charged batteries provide four hours of continuous operation, which can be extended indefinitely using additional hot-swappable battery units. Operating system choices include Windows 11 or Linux.