Northrop Grumman Armament Systems Division (NG-ASD) has outlined ongoing efforts to advance kinetic kill counter-unmanned aerial system (C-UAS) capabilities and develop a family of networked systems to address unmanned air, land, and maritime threats.
Jay Annis, portfolio director at NG-ASD told Jane’s that the company continues to partner with the US Army and US Air Force to develop and field electronic attack and advanced medium-calibre weapons to address unmanned threats.
NG-ASD has integrated the 30 mm Bushmaster M230LF automatic cannon with Liteye’s electronic C-UAS system – developed in partnership with Chess Dynamics and Pratt & Miller – onto a Stryker infantry fighting vehicle to demonstrate how electronic and kinetic attack approaches would work together to neutralise small UAS threats as well as provide increased firepower capability to protect the vehicle and crew from ground threats.
NG-ASD is planning to conduct an end-to-end demonstration of the concept at the US Army’s Maneuver Fires Integrated Experiment (MFIX) exercise at Fort Sill by the end of 2018.
“We are developing the capability to pair our C-UAS systems with kinetic attack capabilities, including our chain guns and ammunition and are currently developing a next-generation proximity fuzed airbursting round for the 30mm M230LF chain gun,” Annis said.
“We are working with the US Army to continue to get these systems qualified for fielding,” he added, while confirming the concept and capability had already been demonstrated externally to customers. “Some of those details remain sensitive but we continue to progress that capability.”
Annis noted that the new ammunition would provide extended range for kinetic attack capabilities of C-UAS systems, with the airburst feature providing increased hit probabilities at longer distances against Group 1 UAS targets.
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