This post is also available in:
עברית (Hebrew)
Modern ground-based air defenses must react to threats that behave very differently in flight. Cruise missiles can approach at low altitude, rockets leave little time for response, and small drones may be difficult to detect and track. Countering that mix requires more than an interceptor: launchers must move precisely, while onboard computers process sensor and targeting information quickly enough to support an engagement.
The U.S. Army’s Indirect Fire Protection Capability Increment 2 (IFPC Inc 2) is receiving new hardware for both tasks. Under contracts worth approximately $40 million from Leidos, Curtiss-Wright will provide electromechanical actuators and rugged mission computers for the mobile air-defense system.
The actuators provide the physical movement needed to accurately position equipment on the platform. They use roller-screw technology, which converts the rotary motion of an electric motor into controlled linear movement. The mechanism can deliver substantial force while maintaining precise positioning, allowing it to support different movement speeds and loads.
For IFPC, commercial roller-screw and motor technologies have been adapted to meet military environmental and performance requirements.
According to Interesting Engineering, using electromechanical rather than hydraulic actuation can offer several advantages on mobile systems. Electrical control eliminates the need for hydraulic fluid and associated components, while potentially simplifying how movement is integrated with the platform’s electronic controls. Size, weight and power efficiency are particularly important when an air-defense system must remain mobile.
The second part of the upgrade happens inside the system.
The company will supply its DuraCOR 8044 mission computer, a compact ruggedized computer built around an 11th-generation Intel Xeon W processor. Unlike a conventional computer, the unit is designed to operate aboard vehicles and other platforms where electronics may encounter vibration, temperature changes and restricted space.
Mission computers provide the processing layer connecting sensors, software and other onboard equipment. Within an air-defense architecture, that computing power can support the information flow required to detect, identify and track incoming threats before the system conducts an engagement.
It is being developed to defend against cruise missiles, rockets and unmanned aircraft systems from ground-based positions. Its role is particularly relevant as militaries seek layered defenses capable of dealing with inexpensive drones alongside faster and more sophisticated missile threats.
The system is also expected to contribute to air-defense operations in the Indo-Pacific, including the planned defense architecture for Guam.
Neither the actuator nor the mission computer is an interceptor by itself, but both illustrate what makes a modern air-defense system work. Sensors may find the threat and weapons may ultimately defeat it, but the hardware in between must turn digital targeting information into accurate physical movement, reliably, quickly and from a platform designed to keep moving with the force.
