Lockheed announces start of MAPS testing

The Army will soon begin testing and integration of Lockheed Martin's Modular Active Protection System, which acts as a hub for a combat vehicle's active protection system, the company announced Feb. 16.

Five base kits of the system will be installed on Abrams, Bradley, Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle and Stryker vehicles under the three-year contract, according to a Lockheed Martin press release. The Army will have an option to increase the number used for testing, up to a total of 20 base kits.

"Lockheed Martin partnered with the U.S. Army in 2014 to develop MAPS as a safe and secure vehicle defense system that protects warfighters from a variety of anti-armor threats," David Rohall, program manager for advanced ground vehicle systems at Lockheed, said in the company's press release. "Since then, the MAPS base kit has proven itself in multiple live-fire demonstrations. We're ready to support integration and testing on a variety of Army combat vehicles, the final step before the Army makes a formal decision on fielding this capability."

The system is designed to work with both current and future systems, and it has an "open-architecture processor that integrates vehicle sensors and countermeasures in a common framework to detect, track and defeat rocket-propelled grenades and anti-tank guided missiles," according to the press release.

Separate sensors and countermeasures plug into the MAPS, which acts as an intermediary and controller. The Army said last year that it should allow components of active protection systems to come from different vendors.