Benzinga | Feb 2, 2021 04:01PM EST

CPS Technologies Reports Purchase Order For HybridTech Armor Panels For Aircraft Carrier

CPS Technologies Corporation (NASDAQ:CPSH) today announced receipt of a purchase order for HybridTech Armor(c) Panels to be installed as the strike face of advanced ballistic shields to support U.S. Navy CVN class ships. The shields provide ballistic protection for crew-served weapons stations and the sailors manning them. The purchase order covers panels to equip all crew-served weapons stations on one aircraft carrier.

"CPS is very pleased to be making a significant contribution to the safety of our men and women in uniform. This purchase order is the culmination of many years of R&D, testing, prototyping and design to apply the beneficial properties of metal-matrix composites to armor at scale," said Grant Bennett, CEO of CPS.

CPS HybridTech Armor Panels are part of an integrated armor system. CPS supplies the HybridTech Armor Panels to our partner, Kinetic Protection, located in Stillwater Minnesota, who assembles the complete armor system which is then installed on the aircraft carrier.

Erik Crawford, President of Kinetic Protection, said, "We are pleased to be working both with the U.S. Navy and CPS to bring this life-saving technology to sailors at sea. We have received a $28.7 million IDIQ contract from the Navy to address the aircraft carrier fleet, with an initial delivery order for the first aircraft carrier."

CPS HybridTech Armor Panels, covered by multiple patents owned by CPS, provide the optimal combination of three key properties: ballistic protection, light weight, and, critically important in this application, environmental durability. The panels do not rust or degrade in salt spray or sunlight. They have passed rigorous military testing over several years -- environmental, full-scale shock and vibration, and extensive ballistic defeat testing. The integrated armor system containing HybridTech Armor Panels is modular in nature allowing it to be easily configured to specific crew-served weapons stations on the aircraft carrier.

In 2008 the U.S Navy defined an "Urgent Requirement" for the development of an improved armor system for crew-served weapons stations to provide an increased level of warfighter protection, withstand the harsh sea environment with a longer life cycle, and provide a common solution across multiple ship classes with a variety of integration capabilities. The Navy subsequently quantified these requirements in a new military specification and defined a new ballistic defeat test methodology. The CPS HybridTech Armor Panels were developed in response to this need, and in collaboration with Kinetic Protection, a complete armor system has been developed which fully meets the new specification.

The need to protect sailors at crew-served weapons stations is not limited to aircraft carriers; the same need exists on many other types of ships in the U.S. Navy. Excluding submarines, the U.S. Navy currently has a fleet of over 400 ships.