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MAF 1.0 is the Army’s roadmap to standardize the development and upgradability of Active Protection Systems (APS) and subsystem technologies utilized by ground vehicle platforms. MAF 1.0 is a comprehensive document that incorporates technical and non-technical standards to guide both government and industry partners on procedures to develop products that are modular, upgradable, safe, and secure. The adoption and implementation of MAF 1.0 is the first step to establish ‘MAPS compliant’ products that are affordable, common, interchangeable and able to be integrated with any APS subsystem on any ground vehicle platform across the Army.
MAF 1.0 is one of two primary products that will result from the MAPS program. MAPS is a multi-year, RDECOM-wide effort led by the Detroit Arsenal-based U.S. Army Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC) and executed in collaboration with the acquisition community and industry. The other MAPS product is the Modular APS Controller (MAC). The MAC is the APS controller subsystem that enables integration and control of APS sensors and countermeasures, as well as the integration of the resulting modular APS onto a ground vehicle platform.
When the MAC and software elements described by MAF 1.0 are applied to an APS subsystem, they provide ground vehicles the capability to defend against current threats and the upgradeability to defeat evolving threats to increase survivability and save lives. Moreover, they allow for more competition and diversity within the APS industry by keeping prices fair, reducing vendor lock and promoting innovation.
“We’re thrilled to release this first version of the MAF that embodies all that has been accomplished since we ‘snapped a chalk line’ on the academic exercise, and released the Beta version of MAF in February 2016,” said Jeff Koshko, TARDEC’s associate director, Ground Vehicle Survivability & Protection. “Over the past 16 months, we have built on that baseline by conducting integration efforts using three different APS defeat approaches and demonstrating the first end-to-end engagement, from cue to defeat using the MAPS approach. The modular framework will continue to evolve, but we are confident this version will provide our collaboration partners an excellent starting point for adapting their APS technologies for MAF compliance.”
The MAPS program uses a concept called Knowledge Points (KPs) to release and update government, industry and academic partners on MAF’s progress on a periodic basis to keep potential future collaboration partners up to date on MAF progress. MAF 1.0 was released under KP7 which represents the largest and most important KP release so far, and consolidates all of the KPs released to date. MAF 1.0 establishes a stable baseline for use by the MAPS Community of Interest (COI) and other collaboration partners, and enables them to continue updating or developing APS technologies for MAF compliance.
“The release of MAF 1.0 is a result of many months of investigation by a team of qualified government and industry personnel and academic researchers focused on APS design, system modeling, functional hierarchy development, requirements engineering, functional allocation, behavior modeling, assessment of APS function safety criticality, power architecture, networking and communications standards and review activities,” said Dan Torres, MAPS chief integrator for modularity. “Essentially, MAF 1.0 is the first, large-scale milestone in the quest for a modular APS. Future releases will continue to add functionality and build on the foundation laid in MAF 1.0.”
The release of MAF 1.0 signifies a major step toward delivering a framework and controller that will enable consistent integration of APS across the ground vehicle fleet. MAPS will provide protection from advanced threats at an optimized weight, facilitate transition with commonality across the ground vehicle fleet and allow APS to be tailored to meet specific needs. These products will lay the foundation for future Vehicle Protection Systems (VPS) technologies.
Anyone interested in participating in the MAPS Community of Interest and influencing the future of APS is invited to obtain more information about joining by emailing ashleys@ncms.org.
ABOUT TARDEC
Headquartered at the U.S. Army Detroit Arsenal in Warren, Mich., TARDEC is a major research, development and engineering center for the Army Materiel Command’s Research, Development and Engineering Command, and is an enterprise partner in the TACOM LCMC.
| Date Taken: | 08.10.2017 |
| Date Posted: | 08.10.2017 13:07 |
| Story ID: | 244441 |
| Location: | WARREN, MI, US |
| Web Views: | 1,159 |
| Downloads: | 5 |
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