Safe was awarded a Phase II SBIR program from the United States Army to develop a new, effective spall liner for combat vehicles. Safe’s new spall liner design will benefit vehicle occupants by protecting them from the hazardous conditions associated with combat, including head injury. Occupants of ground combat vehicles are at risk of head injury when the vehicle is attacked by an underbody blast and its violent motion causes the head to strike the interior. Occupants are also at risk from spall, fragments of material liberated from the interior wall of the vehicle by shock waves or overmatched threats. The design solution will be generally applicable for use in many armored ground vehicles, but it will not yet be specifically designed for integration into any particular vehicle. Safe’s design approach addresses all key technical requirements including head impact, ballistic, thermal, acoustic, and FST.

Safe was awarded a Phase II SBIR program from the United States Army to refine, ballistic test, and demonstrate Safe’s Phase I design for armor for a Mobile Missile Launcher. Rocket motor propellant can react violently when struck by bullets or fragments of exploding weapons. Therefore, the primary benefit of the armor will be to allow mobile missile launchers to have Insensitive Munitions behavior simply by applying armor panels at select locations, rather than the far-more-difficult endeavor to change propellant or redesign the rocket motor. Limiting the most-severe reaction type to only burning, as opposed to a more violent reaction such as detonation, should make the missile launcher much safer for soldiers to operate in hostile environments.

Safe was awarded a Phase I SBIR program from the United States Army to address and remedy problems with current passive occupant restraint systems in helicopters. These restraint systems do not adequately restrict occupants’ upper torso/head motion during a crash event with a combined forward and vertical acceleration component. Safe will be developing a new passive occupant restraint system to reduce the occupant’s motion during these types of crash events. Safe’s new restraint system is also anticipated to be more intuitive, simpler, and easier to use.

Safe was awarded a Phase I SBIR program from the United States Army to develop a new spall liner for combat vehicles. Safe’s new spall liner design will benefit vehicle occupants by protecting them from the hazardous conditions associated with combat, including head injury. Occupants of ground combat vehicles are at risk of head injury when the vehicle is attacked by an underbody blast and its violent motion causes the head to strike the interior. Occupants are also at risk from spall, fragments of material liberated from the interior wall of the vehicle by shock waves or overmatched threats.

Safe, Inc. has been awarded a Phase I SBIR program to develop and demonstrate innovative and advanced concepts for seat restraint systems, which will be intuitively easier and faster to use under any adverse conditions and can be readily integrated into existing forward, aft, and side-facing troop seats in military rotorcraft, while providing the necessary protection requirements to prevent injuries during crash. An easier-to-use more intuitive restraint system would not only facilitate proper use reducing aircraft-related crash injuries and deaths, but would be expected to increase the success ratio of troop extractions, which could lead to saved helicopters as well as saved lives.

Safe, Inc. has been awarded a Phase I SBIR program to develop and demonstrate a hands-free, automatic coupling restraint system that would eliminate the need for the Soldier to manually connect (to), activate, disconnect (from), and de-activate the vehicle restraint system. The leading cause of injuries and fatalities in military ground vehicles can be attributed to troops not wearing seat belts during accidents, and not from combat, as would be expected. This new restraint system would significantly decrease the number of injuries and fatalities occurring among unrestrained troops.

Safe has received an extension of an existing contract from the Aviation Applied Technology Directorate (AATD), Fort Eustis, Virginia. The contract is part of a Multi-phase Two Step BAA contracting vehicle to support the development of improved crash protection for crews of Army helicopters.

The additional work will expand on the capability of the crash responsive technology developed by Safe in the previous phase of work. The goal is to extend the capability of current energy absorbing and restraint systems to provide crash protection in significantly more severe crashes than do current systems. The work involves modeling, analysis, design, and testing to be conducted over an 18-month time period.

Safe is teamed with AmSafe Aviation of Phoenix, AZ to provide inflatable restraint support to the program.