The Israel Ministry of Defense announced on 2 November 2021 that along with the German Ministry of Defence, it had completed the first series of live-firing tests in Germany of the Trophy active defence system integrated into a Leopard 2 main battle tank. (IMOD)
A set of electro-optical (EO) sensors is under development for the EuroTrophy active protection system (APS) that will enable it to operate without activating its phased-array doppler radars, Dan Kalfus, managing director of EuroTrophy GmbH, announced at Defence IQ's International Armoured Vehicles (IAV) 2023 conference in London.
The development follows work in Israel to equip Merkava Mk 4 main battle tanks and Namer armoured personnel carriers with a variant of the Trophy-HV APS that also utilises EO sensors.
Technical details regarding the EO sensors – dubbed ‘Othello' – were not released, but it was disclosed that they can be used in conjunction with or in place of Trophy's Elta EL/M-2133 doppler radars.
Pending further information from the manufacturers, Janes believes the system uses a passive infrared sensor to detect a threat and to calculate its velocity and direction of travel. It is expected that vehicles equipped with EuroTrophy will have four sensors, each covering one quadrant of the vehicle to collectively provide 360° coverage.
The sensors can be used in conjunction with the doppler radars to verify detection and tracking information. Consequently, the addition of the EO sensors can lower the probability of false alerts by discounting anomalies from the radars. The sensors can also be used in place of the radars, enabling a vehicle to use its APS without emitting a radio frequency signal.
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