Posted by Courtney Howard
WILMINGTON, Mass., 20 Jan. 2010. Textron Defense Systems--an operating unit of Textron Systems, a Textron Inc. company--announced that its XM1100 Scorpion networked sensor and munitions system has completed a rigorous test series at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.
Testing culminated in the first end-to-end, live-fire engagement by the Scorpion networked sensor and munitions platform, with the Scorpion system scoring a perfect three for three against vehicle targets, reveals a company representative.
Remote-controlled military targets were driven through multiple fields of Scorpion systems, which identified and tracked the targets, passing information to an operator overlooking the fields. The operator then armed a Scorpion system with a high-explosive munition, destroying the targets and demonstrating the system's effectiveness.
The Scorpion system includes networked, arrayed lethal and non-lethal engagement effects and components for command and control, situational awareness and communications, all of which are linked by a central command-and-control module. The system can detect, track, classify, report and engage enemy vehicles, making it effective for battlespace shaping and force protection.
A network of 16 dispensing modules was employed during the White Sands Missile Range test event, which included demonstration of command and control, ground sensor tracking, target engagement, anti-vehicle munitions launch and warhead lethality, self-destruction testing, and soldier interaction testing and assessment.
Additional achievements included the testing of a fielded Scorpion system overnight to observe its force protection capability.
"The White Sands Missile Range end-to-end test event demonstrates that our Scorpion system operates as intended--to protect warfighters from surrounding threats and provide them critical force protection capability," says Textron Defense Systems' senior vice president and general manager Mark Catizone. "The demonstration's successful completion brings us an important step closer to delivering this system into the hands of warfighters."
Following this major program milestone, Textron Defense Systems plans to deliver production representative systems for government qualification testing, which is expected to commence this year.
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