U.S Army Tests MRAP Vehicles For Safety Issues

The U.S Army has completed safety release testing for a new fleet of networked vehicles. The Army Test and Evaluation Command determined that the five baseline designs for mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles, known as MRAPs, equipped with Capability Set 13, or CS 13, are suitable for new equipment training. "As the Army moves toward smartly integrating and delivering Capability Sets, we also need to smartly test the integrated platforms within the context of the network," said Robert Puhalla, synchronized fielding test lead, Army System of Systems Integration, or SoSI Directorate. "The Capability Set 13 testing takes advantage of previous efforts from Lab Based Risk Reduction and Network Integration Evaluations to ensure a thorough check-out prior to fielding". The safety release testing for CS 13 vehicles focused on two main categories: human factors and electromagnetic interference. During the human factors phase, test personnel conducted ingress/egress drills for various scenarios, such as evacuating a vehicle due to casualties. The testers donned full combat gear to ensure they could access and operate CS 13 system controls wearing different sets of gloves, including extreme weather arctic mittens, cold weather mittens with isolated trigger finger and protective gloves used on nuclear, chemical and biological missions. The Army also conducted extensive Lab Based Risk Reduction activities at APG, in order to validate system functionality, interoperability, all configuration settings and mission threads prior to the NIE field exercises.