SANTA CLARA, Calif., 1 August 2005. BAE Systems has been awarded a three-year contract worth up to $2.8 million from the U.S. Navy's Office of Naval Research to develop an advance armor solution for Marine Corps ground combat vehicles.
The program will focus on developing an advanced system by exploring and refining the potential synergy between Electro Magnetic Armor (EMA) and other armor technologies.
Under the contract, BAE Systems, teamed with ARL at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., will test and develop configurations that combine the benefits of the armor technologies. Armor recipe development will be followed by multi-hit arrays and then a full vehicle kit. ARL will provide design, modeling and test support to the program.
The effort will benefit from knowledge gained on prior EMA-related design, experimentation, pulsed power and vehicle integration by the company, ARL and TARDEC on both conventional and hybrid-electric drive vehicles.
"In meeting the requirements of this contract, BAE Systems and the Army Research Lab (ARL) will leverage our extensive experience in the development of EMA and other armor technologies," said Mark Middione, Survivability program manager for BAE Systems. "We are looking forward to developing a combined technology that will directly benefit Marines in hostile environments."
The award is the second vehicle survivability contract awarded to BAE Systems by ONR. Since 2001, the company has been working on a Smart Survivable Structure program to investigate and incorporate emerging technologies into hull structure designs that increase vehicle survivability, with an emphasis on developing lightweight nanomaterial armors, a miniature structure-integral electronic jammer and an adaptive visual layer.
BAE Systems is an international company engaged in the development, delivery, and support of advanced defense and aerospace systems in the air, on land, at sea, and in space. The company designs, manufactures, and supports military aircraft, combat vehicles, surface ships, submarines, radar, avionics, communications, electronics, and guided weapon systems. For more information, see www.baesystems.com.
