The U.S. Army issued an $89-million contract to install anti-block braking and electronic stability control systems (ABS/ESC) to HMMWV tactical vehicles in its fleet. Ricardo Defense Systems will provide up to 9,480 ABS/ESC retrofit kits over the next three years for High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles (HMMWVs). The first delivery calls for 1,200 ABS/ESC retrofit kits by August 2021.
A second order is expected later this year for approximately 2,000 ABS/ESC retrofit kits over the next 12 months.
Red River Army Depot, in partnership with Ricardo Defense, will complete the ABS/ESC retrofit installations at the Army’s Center of Industrial and Technical Excellence for tactical wheeled vehicles in Texarkana, Texas and at regional sites across the U.S, starting immediately.
The Army projects it will maintain HMMWVs in service until 2050. In 2018, it mandated that all new HMMWVs must have the ABS/ESC system installed, and since July 2018 more than 5,000 new production or recapitalized HMMWV vehicles have been delivered to the U.S. Army with Ricardo’s ABS/ESC technology.
In 2019, the Army provisioned Ricardo’s ABS/ESC retrofit kit into the national stock system for retrofit of vehicles not addressed during new production or recapitalization.
The retrofitting program stems from a 2017 developmental effort coordinated by LIFT, a DoD-backed manufacturing innovation center in Detroit, which researched the retrofitting concept in collaboration with Ricardo Defense Systems. The LIFT project also included contributions from GKN, Michigan Technological University and the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute.
It led to retrofitting 10 Michigan National Guard vehicles with the optimized ABS/ESC system and making the kit available for purchase by military units worldwide.
According to LIFT, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data indicates ABS/ESC systems reduce fatal rollovers by 74% in vehicle classes similar to HMMWVs.
“This successful technology transfer into the marketplace and into the hands of the military to improve soldier safety is exactly why LIFT exists as a public-private partnership,” stated Nigel Francis, CEO and executive director of LIFT.
