Bradley Fighting Vehicle Getting New Eyes.

• Author: Hall, Joe

Sensors shared across platforms to save on maintenance and repair expenses

The Bradley fighting vehicle, which transports U.S. Army infantry and cavalry troops, operates alongside the Abrams main battle tank and provides the firepower to support dismounted soldiers or attack enemy armor and fortifications.

The Army has been working for several years to improve the Bradley in a series of upgrade programs. The most modern versions of the Bradley are the M2A3 infantry and M3A3 cavalry fighting vehicles.

Among the capability enhancements found in both the M2A3 and M3A3 vehicles is the "improved Bradley acquisition subsystem," or IBAS.

The 2nd Infantry Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment of the 4th Mechanized Infantry Division, at Port Hood, Texas, became the first unit equipped with the modernized M2A3 Bradley in May.

IBAS uses second-generation forward-looking infrared (Gen II FLIR) technology to help the Bradley crew acquire and identify targets in night or day. Under the Army's horizontal technology integration (HTI) initiative, IBAS shares its Gen II FLIR with other platforms.

The Army plans to modernize about 1,100 Bradleys with IBAS, a commander's independent viewer (CIV), and Force XXI digital command and control improvements, including a MIL-STD-1553 databus. DRS Technologies, based in Parsippany, N.J., received a low-rate, initial-production contract in January 2000, for the IBAS subsystems. A decision to transition IBAS to full production in 2001, is expected later this year.

The Gen II FLIR sensor of the new Bradley sight is packaged in a B-kit, a working sensor, which is also common to the commander's independent thermal viewer on the M1A2 Abrams tank and the long-range advanced scout surveillance system (LRAS3) on the M1025 scout vehicle. The same B-kit is a candidate to upgrade the Marine Corps' Abrams ranks and other ground vehicles worldwide.

Seeing Through a Storm

With its second-generation thermal imager, IBAS addresses the shortcomings of the first-generation common module FLIRs used on the M2A2 Bradley in Operation Desert Storm. The original Bradley TOW 2 subsystem (T2SS) has both a thermal imaging FLIR and direct view optics to aim the TOW 2 (tube launched, optically tracked, wire guided) missile and the 25mm cannon.

While the first-generation thermal imager sees in the dark, it has an effective range which is less than the maximum stand-off range of the missile. The range of the first-generation sight is cut even more in...