Raytheon [RTN] is ready for formal government testing in March of its Quick Kill Active Protection System (APS) following the success of its own tests that a company official said shows the system’s maturity and accuracy.
“Raytheon’s APS is based on the same radar technology deployed to perform sense and warn operations at active Forward Operating Bases,” Jeff Miller, vice president of Combat and Sensing Systems for Raytheon’s Network Centric Systems business, told Defense Daily. “It has been extremely successful in providing timely warning against rocket and mortar attacks.”
In theater, the system operates 24/7 with “extremely high accuracy, low false alarm rate,” he said.
Quick Kill consists of a technology readiness level (TRL) 9 multi-mission RF fire-control radar providing detection and track of incoming threats. This combines with TRL 7 level hard kill countermeasures.
“We think APS is clearly at a point where it’s the right answer for whatever emerging vehicle,” Miller said. “The combination of armor and APS is ultimately, we think, the right solution for general vehicle protection.”
APS tests show it can provide a level of protection that allows a significant reduction in the weight of armor going on the vehicle, he said. One of its discriminators is the use of the radars, which provide a hemispherical 360 degree dome of protection over the vehicle. The system countermeasures pop up and shoot down, helping to limit damage, and enables the system to defeat simultaneous, multiple, targets fired from any angle or elevation. The system allows multi-tracking and multi-engagement of enemy fire.
Quick Kill is part of the Ground Combat Vehicle (GCV) effort, and budget concerns and schedules could potentially delay the program and call into question some of the maturing technologies such as APS and delay its fielding.
It might be reasonable, Miller said, for other program offices to start developing the promising technology and not necessarily be tied to a given contractor on the GCV program.
Following Army acquisition goals, Raytheon is developing the system with commonality in mind, Miller said. The APS could benefit other vehicles, in a way similar to that of Raytheon’s night vision products, found in a variety of vehicles, where the core technology–forward looking infrared–is the same. In a similar way, radars could be integrated into a vehicle such as the GCV or bolted on, say, to a Stryker.
The system has evolved over time, including leveraging an earlier Future Combat System program to protect combat vehicles from shoulder-fired and tube-launched Rocket Propelled Grenades (RPGs) (Defense Daily, Oct. 5, 2009).
Much of the maturity has come from refining algorithms, Miller said, allowing the system to defeat a wider range of threats. Future system upgrades would mean changing software rather than hardware.
In December 2012 tests, the Quick Kill APS demonstrated its protective capabilities by successfully defeating an extended set of threats, including one of the most lethal–destroying it in midflight, the company said in a statement.
The tests, conducted by Raytheon, were using Quick Kill against “shorter, faster, more lethal and harder to defeat threats, including defeating the most lethal threat out there now…very effectively,” Miller said.