By Ann Roosevelt
BAE Systems and Northrop Grumman [NOC] this week revealed their tracked vehicle concept for the Army’s Ground Combat Vehicle (GCV) competition, where hybrid electric drive is key, network capability is ready and the vehicle can evolve, officials said.
The choice of hybrid-electric drive is “no whim,” Mark Signorelli, vice president and general manager Ground Combat Vehicle at BAE, said at a press briefing July 27.
The technology is mature, he said. “It allows us to add more survivability to the vehicle without increasing the gross vehicle weight. It provides power, not just for mobility but also for other technology integration and it provides a forward-facing technology that will allow the vehicle to grow into the future.”
“Our mobility meets or exceeds that of the Abrams main battle tank,” he said. The mobility performance extends beyond the current 53-ton weight of the GCV vehicle up to 75 tons, still meeting all of the mobility requirements.
The Army plans as many as three contract awards late this year. Teams led by General Dynamics [GD] and SAIC [SAI] have also submitted proposals for the 27-month technology demonstration phase (Defense Daily, May 24).
BAE has worked on hybrid electric drive since 1979 to include an electric M113 vehicle. Back then, he said, the technology was novel, but it has changed significantly over the decades. For example, now, most people have ridden in a Prius or Civic Hybrid or a hybrid bus. Caterpillar [CAT] also has started advertising its hybrid electric D-7E dozer, something they’ve been producing for 10 years.
While BAE produces hybrid electric drive, a global search for the best system came to team member QinetiQ North America, whichhas moved the mature technology into the combat vehicle environment. In 2009, as the GCV competition moved forward, QinetiQ said it redesigned its E-X Drive from the canceled 24-ton Future Combat Systems manned ground vehicle and scaled it up for the GCV (Defense Daily, Oct. 8).
Signorelli said the drive offers “a 50 percent reduction in moving parts and a 10-20 percent increase in fuel efficiency.”
“It’s the most weight efficient, most effective drive system that is mature and available to be fielded today,” he said. It meets all the GCV mobility requirements, and the cost savings over the life of the vehicle “far exceeds” current combat vehicles in terms of “fuel efficiency, agility, acceleration and maintainability.”
And, he said, the dual engines build in redundancy and availability.
The system provides the power for technology with a margin to accept and integrate technologies as they mature.
Hybrid electric drive provides survivability. It allows the addition of four tons of additional protection at the same vehicle weight, enhancing survivability,
Protection and survivability of soldiers is the overwhelming requirement of the vehicle, Signorelli said, and the vehicle was designed from the ground up to be the most survivable vehicle the Army would have ever fielded.
“We’ve made the soldier the center of this vehicle design,” he said. It incorporates “active and passive protection systems, five point restrains, acceleration limiting seats, spall liners and signature management.”
The design kept in mind lessons learned from current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, and the range of deadly munitions, IEDs, EFPs and RPGs, he said. Thus, modular armor packages allow survivability in a broad range of environments while offering commanders the ability to rapidly tailor their force for specific requirements.
Army leaders have said the network is a vital component of the service’s ability to conduct operations in the future. The proposed GCV is network ready, said Joe Taylor, vice president of Ground Combat Systems in the Defense Systems Div., of Northrop Grumman Information Systems.
By partnering early with BAE, Taylor said, the design moved to what the companies believe will fit command, control, communications, computer, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (C4ISR) requirements now and in the future.
The design also benefitted from prior work done on FCS and company expertise. The proposal offers proven C4ISR to be integrated with open architecture and infrastructure that can be used now and in the future.
“We’ve designed the vehicle so that it can evolve,” Taylor said. “With regard to communications and mission equipment packages, we’ve made the vehicle as agnostic as possible.”
“Uniquely to this vehicle will be an opportunity to blend the network and vehicle situational awareness together,” he said.
The vehicle will have multi-sensor 360 degree capability so the crew can see, and the driver will have greater than 180 degree visibility when he is buttoned up to drive, Taylor said.
“Because of that ability, we can take much of the network situation awareness and potentially apply that to the commander and driver as well–for identification friend or foe, indications of obstacles, ways to blend the network and the vehicle, because we were able to design it from the ground up,” he said.
The Army envisions a multirole combat vehicle that will perform over a broad spectrum of missions.
“We think what we’re offering the army is a low-risk vehicle,” Signorelli said. “We’ve taken technologies we’ve matured both on other Army development programs, the FCS Manned ground vehicle, MRAP vehicles, as well as our IR&D and found the best, most mature technology that we can package in this vehicle, to provide a vehicle that looks forward not backward.”