New Bomb-Resistant Trucks Will Blast RPGs Before They Hit
November 30th, 2009Via: Wired:
The U.S. military’s toughest trucks are getting a new layer of protection — against rocket-propelled grenades. The Army recently awarded an $8 million contract to equip MRAP (mine resistant ambush protected) armored trucks with Iron Curtain. It’s a protection system which blasts incoming rockets before they can hit the vehicle. If the system works, it could go all long way towards neutralizing one of the deadliest threats American troops face overseas.
The contract calls for the Iron Curtain with Darpa’s sniper-detection system, CROSSHAIRS. It detects and locates enemy shooters using radar and acoustic sensors, and is intended to work against Rocket Propelled Grenades (RPGs), missiles, bullets and mortar rounds. Iron Curtain itself is currently designed to deal with RPGs; the makers Artis LLC planning future developments to deal with more challenging threats.
Iron Curtain system detects and tracks the incoming rocket with a radar, which then cues an optical sensor — a smart camera, essentially. The optical sensor identifies and classifies the threat — pinpointing the location of the rocket with an accuracy of about half an inch — and selects an aim point.
A row of explosive countermeasures is mounted on a rail running around the top of the vehicle. The system selects the best one of countermeasures, and fires it vertically downwards at the exact moment the rocket is passing. This does not destroy the warhead but ‘duds’ it so that the warhead deflagrates, rather than exploding properly. By the end of the collision of RPG and countermeasure, Artis claims, the warhead bounces off of the vehicle’s side.
