Leonardo trial ‘high-tech protection’ for military vehicles

DSEI 2021 – Leonardo has launched a new modular defence system for vehicles such as tanks and armoured personnel carriers.

The firm say that the system integrates active protection sensor and countermeasure technologies to both disrupt and physically defeat incoming missiles.

According to a news release from the firm:

“Leonardo, leading a cross-UK team of science and technology experts, has successfully trialled a high-tech new protection system approach for Army vehicles such as tanks and armoured personnel carriers. Called MIPS (Modular Integration Protection System), the new approach brings together layers of electronic and physical protection technologies to equip vehicle crews with a formidable defensive shield. The team included Abstract Solutions, CGI, Frazer-Nash, Lockheed Martin UK, RBSL, Roke and Ultra Electronics.

The demonstration of the developmental MIPS architecture was a key milestone of project Icarus, a Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) technology demonstrator programme (TDP). Dstl launched the programme in response to the increasing prevalence and rapidly evolving threat of battlefield weapon systems such as modern Rocket Propelled Grenades (RPGs) and Anti-Tank Guided Weapons (ATGWs).”

It is understood that during the trial, which took place at the MOD Shoeburyness range in Essex in July, representative weapons were fired from short range at MIPS.

“The developmental system integrated a combination of commercial off-the-shelf and surrogate sensors and countermeasures that were each adapted to integrate into MIPS. This trial provided a comprehensive test of the ability of the MIPS sense, control and reaction sequence to respond appropriately to threats within extremely short timeframes.”

MIPS is based on open-systems and model-driven principles to form the basis of an architectural and infrastructure approach to ground vehicle protection that supports the modular integration, acquisition & safe deployment of ‘best-of-breed’ sensors and countermeasures to deliver UK operational independence.

“This includes sensors and ‘soft’ protection systems that focus on early threat detection and attempt to disrupt, decoy or spoof the incoming threat and ‘hard’ countermeasure systems to intercept and physically defeat the incoming weapon system, known in military terminology as a ‘kinetic effect’.”

Following the successful conclusion of the TDP as originally scoped, contract amendments have been placed to extend the programme to explore the potential application of MIPS to deliver counter-drone and counter-ISTAR capability solutions, say Leonardo.