ACTIVE BLAST MITIGATION SYSTEMS USING LINEAR ROCKET MOTORS

Modern warfighters face a continual threat of injury or death from mine/IED attacks on vehicles, and this, coupled with an increase in operations requiring off-road movement across areas containing substantial blast threats means that an urgent need exists for lightweight blast mitigation technologies which can be easily integrated on new and existing vehicles to protect the occupants from injury. The currently heavy passive protection technology in terms of V-hulls, high ground clearance, and very heavy vehicle weights degrades the off-road capability and performance of the vehicles excessively, so lightweight Active Mine Protection Systems (AMPS™) are viewed as the way forward. This paper describes the development of the ABBS Vehicle Global Acceleration Mitigation (VGAM™) technology designed to keep vehicles on the ground when hit by under-belly mines, and further developments to protect the crew from the other secondary effects of mine blasts such as Floor Shock and Floor Deformation are also briefly introduced.