Rafael and DRS team to market active protection systems

Israeli government-owned company Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd. has teamed with DRS Technologies Inc. to jointly market and develop advanced hostile fire detection and active protection capabilities for the US ground systems market.

The partnership leverages Rafael�s experience in vehicle survivability technology along with DRS�s targeting systems integration capabilities and US market experience. Both companies develop technologies that protect warfighters from anti-armor threats and working together combines their technology, skills, and resources to meet the difficult challenges in this area. Initially the Israeli and US companies are focusing on the combat proven TROPHY-HV hard kill active protection system.

Rafael VP and general manager land and naval systems sector Giora Katz said, �Until now, the accepted response to these modern threats has been to add more armor to the vehicle, adding weight and sacrificing critical mobility and reliability performance. While others continue to try, TROPHY-HV solves this problem today after years of intensive development and thorough safety certification, returning the combat vehicle to battlefield dominance. Active protection is not science fiction anymore, as TROPHY-HV has proven in multiple successful combat intercepts and saved lives - and we intend to keep the TROPHY technology one step ahead of the ever-changing threat. We owe this much to the troops.�

DRS Sustainment Systems, Inc. VP and general manager Joseph Matteoni said, �Our ground forces today face increasingly more lethal anti-armor threats. We look forward to bringing the best of our two companies together to assist our US customers and warfighters in fielding the finest survivability solutions in the world. Our mission is to help them avoid another IED-like surprise on the next battlefield. As an Israeli defense firm, Rafael is a world leader in both their depth of knowledge of modern threat capabilities and their proven ability to rapidly develop survivability technologies to defeat them.�

Recently chosen for integration on a widely-fielded combat vehicle, the TROPHY-HV Active Protection System neutralizes modern anti-armor threats (including all anti-tank rockets and guided missiles) and tank-fired high explosive anti-tank rounds. The system, currently deployed in combat zones by the Israel Defense Forces, rapidly detects and tracks any incoming threat, classifies it, computes the optimal intercept point in space, and, if necessary, neutralizes it away from the platform. Additionally, TROPHY-HV calculates the location of the shooter, alerts the crew for immediate action, and reports the location across the battle management network for situational awareness across the formation. Due to the non-explosive nature of the defeat mechanism and the system�s intercept precision, the companies claim that the probability of collateral injury due to TROPHY-HV is proven to be less than 1%.

Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on October 23, 2012