MTS Systems wins contract to build road simulator for US Army

MTS Systems has secured a contract from the US Army to design and build the world’s largest spindle-coupled road simulator.

Funding under the $30.4m contract is to be made available incrementally through options exercisable in fiscal years 2020, 2021 and 2022.

MTS Systems president and CEO Dr Jeffrey Graves said: “This road simulator is a scaled-up extension of the heavy truck testing technology that MTS has developed over the last fifty years.

“MTS is pleased to apply knowledge from commercial vehicle modelling and simulation to create full-vehicle testing solutions for the army. This new system will help increase military vehicle reliability and allow the army to tailor vehicle designs for optimal performance in the field.”

The army intends to use the road simulator to accelerate military vehicle durability testing. It will enable the service to compress the required testing time to 80%.

The proposed road simulator is meant for installation at the army’s Aberdeen Test Center in Maryland.

The simulator will provide the army with the capability to test vehicles with up to five axles and weighing up to 100,000lb.

MTS stated that the simulator will allow the army to assess vehicle reliability and durability and make necessary adjustments to ‘avoid potentially time-consuming in-field failures’.

The contract is in line with the US Department of Defense directives to advance the use of modelling and simulation tools in vehicle development and testing.

The solution to be provided under this contract will also include MTS SWIFT EVO 50 Wheel Force Transducers that will enable improved measurement accuracy.

SWIFT EVO transducers will be used to gather real-time data from these vehicles on various proving ground terrains.