DARPA looks to improve armoured vehicle agility

DARPA is set to kick off its Ground X-Vehicle Technology (GXV-T) programme shortly, as it seeks engagement with non-traditional contributors to pursue fundamental research and development of groundbreaking future capabilities.

The GXV-T programme aims to improve the survivability of ground-based armoured fighting vehicles by increasing vehicle agility.

Today’s armoured vehicles are increasingly burdened with heavy armour to protect occupants against progressively sophisticated weaponry in high threat environments; and, as vehicles become heavier they become inherently less agile.

Increasing vehicle agility involves the ability to autonomously avoid incoming threats, either by rapidly moving out of the way or reconfiguring the vehicle so incoming threats have a low probability of hitting and penetrating the vehicle.

GXV-T seeks to develop revolutionary technologies to enable a layered approach to protection that would use less armour more strategically and improve vehicles’ ability to avoid detection, engagement and hits by adversaries. Such capabilities would enable smaller, faster vehicles in the future to more efficiently and cost-effectively tackle varied and unpredictable combat situations.

GXV-T will assess a number of approaches to achieve this, including active repositioning of armour, burst acceleration and suspensions that would enable the vehicle to dodge.

DARPA expects to release two Broad Agency Announcements with full technical details for GXV-T shortly.