Northrop Grumman has announced on 15 January that the company demonstrated a complete Vehicle Active Protection System (APS) that defeated a variety of real world live fired Anti-Tank Guided Munitions (ATGMs) during the U.S. Army Tank Automotive Research Development Engineering Center (TARDEC) sponsored Soft-kill Rodeo in Huntsville on Oct. 5-31.

Using its Passive Infrared Cueing Sensors system, Northrop Grumman successfully generated threat warning of inbound ATGMs and provided a cue for the soft kill countermeasure system (SKCM).

The Northrop Grumman SKCM system, known as the Multifunction Electro-Optical System (MEOS), successfully countered the ATGM and defeated it in real-time.

The MEOS identified and countered all types of threats fired at its APS system, making this the fourth consecutive time the system has performed well in field tests to defeat threats.  

“This solution is an example of leveraging significant investment in aircraft protection to rapidly provide similar capabilities to ground vehicles,” said Mike Meaney, vice president, advanced missions, Northrop Grumman. “We look forward to working with the Army to deploy an affordable end-to-end Vehicle APS system that can defeat a variety of anti-tank guided munitions.”

The month-long government sponsored “rodeo” was developed to demonstrate and test soft-kill capability against real world threats.

A soft-kill capability enables the active protection system to confuse an incoming sensor-based weapon system through spoofing, interference or obscuration, resulting in the elimination of the threat.