US moves out on remote mines and sensors

Low-rate initial production is due to begin in 2004 of Spider, a hand-emplaced man-in-the-loop munitions system under development by ATK and Textron Systems as a replacement for anti-personnel landmines. The two companies were jointly awarded a US$53.8million contract to complete Spider development by the US Army Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center in November 2002.

The basis of Spider is its munitions control unit (MCU), a pedestal which embodies a communications module linked to the six lethal or non-lethal munitions that it supports. On command from the operator's remote control unit (RCU, a rugged laptop computer such as the Tadiran Tacter-31A), the MCU launches its web of tripwires, aligned with the direction of aim of each of the six munitions ports. The latter may be charged with grenades of various kinds, or fitted with an adaptor allowing command-detonation of a Claymore mine or other offset munition. If the wires are pulled, a signal is automatically sent to the RCU for the operator to decide a response. The operator is able to control a number of MCUs from a single RCU, the communications module in each MCU allowing the latter to be remoted up to 1.5km, or further if a repeater unit is deployed. Spider is designed for recovery and reuse, the MCU battery (which has a life of more than 30 days) being replaced as necessary after a deployment, along with the expended tripwire container and any munitions that may have been discharged.

Meanwhile Textron is engaged on a US$34.9million three-year contract to develop technology for Increment 1 of the Intelligent Munition System (IMS), one of two unattended munitions programs included in the US Army Future Combat Systems (FCS) unmanned systems (Annex E) program. Incorporating a networked communications system, IMS is expected to include anti-vehicle, anti-personnel, urban, and non-lethal weapons variants. A parallel US$31.5million IMS Increment 1 technology development contract has been awarded to General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems (GD AIS; see IDR 6/2003, p8).

Unattended sensors are also covered by FCS Annex E. In this field Textron Systems has been appointed prime contractor for the FCS Urban and FCS Tactical unattended ground sensors (UGS), for which it received a three-year US$30million development contract in August 2003. The company has also won a US$19.2million sole development contract for the US Air Force's Advanced Remote Ground Unattended Sensor (ARGUS) and the similar Advanced Air Delivered Sensor (AADS) for the US Marine Corps (see IDR 9/2003, p12). ARGUS is intended to detect, track, identify and report time-sensitive ground targets to an Air Operations Center in near-real time, using an air-delivered or hand-emplaced store containing sensors, communications, other electronics and power supplies. AADS will use similar means to detect, identify and report enemy activity in a named area of interest. The program runs until September 2009.

A third UGS activity area for Textron is the MDUGS (Massively Deployed UGS) program in which it is once again engaged in competitive study against GD AIS (see IDR 10/2002, p20). For this program Textron is understood to be developing a new multimode (seismic/acoustic/magnetic) mini-sensor, able to generate azimuth information. MDUGS functionality includes ground and air vehicle detection, classification, identification and tracking; personnel detection and classification; and artillery detection, classification and location. ITT is one of Textron's communications systems collaborators on MDUGS, downselection for the development and demonstration phase of which is expected in January 2004, with a view to delivering a 10-node demonstrator later that year.