Artillery Precision Guidance Kit Gun Firing Test Completed

Raytheon Company successfully completed a gun firing test of its low-cost, XM1156 Precision Guidance Kit (PGK) solution at Picatinny Arsenal, New Jersey, March 16. The test firing, shot from the Picatinny Ballistic Rail Gun System, met all test objectives.

PGK is a competitive U.S. Army program designed to demonstrate the ability to significantly improve the accuracy of existing ballistic and cargo 155 and 105 mm artillery rounds through the addition of a low-cost, GPS guided fuze kit, which integrates into the round's shallow fuze well without modification.

The Raytheon PGK was also designed to meet Army program requirements through a low-cost airbrake solution having minimal impact on round stability. Raytheon's solution focuses on meeting the PGK requirements at the lowest cost with the capability for incremental growth.

Raytheon's Missile Systems business in Tucson, Arizona, will serve as prime systems integrator, airframe designer, and guidance and control authority, utilizing L3 KDI Precision Products, Inc., to produce the all-up "smart fuze" kit at its automated fuze factory in Cincinnati, Ohio. KDI's proven experience with manufacturing more than 215,000 MOFA (Multi-Option Fuze for Artillery) fuzes for the U.S. Army will help ensure a low production cost for PGK. The Spearhead flight tests will culminate in closed loop, GPS-guided, fully integrated round testing through April 2006 at "tactically significant" ranges.

The PGK successfully survived approximately 8,000 Gs (x gravity), the equivalent of a Modular Artillery Charge System 4 firing and the safety maximum given the mass of the test round. The PGK guidance electronics unit (GEU) successfully deployed the airbrake assembly immediately after muzzle exit. This live fire test culminates hardware-in-the-loop testing, 270 Hz laboratory deployment spin tests, 300 Hz live gun fire structural tests and integrated GEU rail-gun testing to 11,000 Gs.

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