As experts in CO₂ pressure, Inova was tapped to develop a pressure regulator as part of a greater team of partners working on the magazine for a non-lethal firearm simulator. The existing magazine had a high failure rate. We could not alter the performance of the firearm simulator itself, which was reliable as it was.

The customer came to us with a proof-of-concept (POC) prototype for the magazine. The original design had CO₂ leakage issues and O-ring failures. To accomplish this, we turned the concept into a practical, robust, lower cost, more beautiful, and more user-friendly design. Size constraints were a challenge on the project because avoiding changes to the firearm simulator meant that the form factor could not be increased; this meant that anything we did to the inside of the magazine would impact the pressure pathway to release the projectiles.

It was clear to us from the beginning that numerical modeling was the approach we needed to take: the high-pressure environment meant we could not use prototype parts and anything we made would have to be machined and therefore expensive. We did a great deal of testing of the moving parts virtually through MATLAB Simulink, going back and forth between design and modeling until we were confident the design would work. When we moved to the prototype, it followed the model, signifying a great deal of cost savings on the way to the finish line.

All objectives of this project have been met, and through our partnerships with manufacturers, we have delivered over 5,000 units to the client.