Protect (ATD)

Abstract

The Protect Advanced Technology Development (ATD) Project enhances mission performance while providing effective protection against current and emerging chemical and biological (CB) threats, enables Joint Force lethality by protecting Warfighters against adverse effects of CB hazards, and fields protection capabilities against engineered biological agents, opioids and other Pharmaceutical Based Agents (PBAs), and Fourth Generation Agents (FGAs). Thrust Areas included in this Project are: (1) Air Purification Enhancements (2) All-Hazards & Respiratory Protection (3) Multifunctional Materials for Protection (4) Enhanced Survivability Coatings (5) Dynamic Multifunctional Materials for Second Skin (6) Bacterial Prophylaxis (7) Broad Spectrum (8) Toxin Prophylaxis (9) Viral Prophylaxis Air Purification Enhancements: Focuses on optimizing and extending filter life to reduce lifecycle costs while maintaining or improving protection. Efforts optimize and extend filter life to save costs while maintaining or improving protection and improving integration of collective protection into developmental Service major combat platforms. The FY23 efforts include additional investments in enhanced biodefense and pandemic preparedness. All-Hazards & Respiratory Protection: Develops next generation general purpose mask that unencumbers the Warfighter and integrates with existing system technology, completes work on the Tactical All Hazards Ensemble to support special purpose units, and supports modernization efforts to insert new technologies into current respirator efforts that protect against the full spectrum of threats in support the range of military operations, to include scalable protection. The FY23 efforts include additional investments in enhanced biodefense and pandemic preparedness. Multifunctional Materials for Protection: Efforts utilize a combination of basic and applied research to discover and develop a pipeline for the next generation materials, technologies, self-regenerating protective garments, decontaminants, and filter materials that react with chemical agents to actively decontaminate on demand and regenerate protective capacity for unencumbering the warfighter. Enhanced Survivability Coatings: Efforts address materiel surface ease of decontamination and resistance to chemical agent penetration. Projects will develop temporary coatings that resist chemical agent absorption and are quickly decontaminated in the field and allow the rapid regeneration of combat power. Dynamic Multifunctional Materials for Second Skin: Utilizes responsive technologies to provide chemical biological protective suits that adapt to the threat and environment by synthesizing scaled samples for manufacturing which exhibit materials properties that reduce thermal burden and integrate with current combat garments. Bacterial Prophylaxis: Provides the Warfighter protection against biothreat agents through the pre-exposure administration of prophylactics against known bacterial threats of interest and emerging infectious threats. Near-term efforts include prophylaxis against agents on the tradition BW threat list followed by efforts to discover and develop advanced protectants against novel targets for the traditional threats and emerging biological warfare (BW) threats. Broad Spectrum: Discovers and develops broadly protective strategies and nontraditional approaches against new and emerging threats followed by efforts to discover and develop broad-based strategies that address multiple serotypes/toxin classes/mechanisms of intoxication. Toxin Prophylaxis: Provides the Warfighter protection through the pre-exposure administration of prophylactics against known toxin threats of interest and emerging infectious threats. Viral Prophylaxis: Provides the Warfighter protection through the pre-exposure administration of prophylactics against known viral threats of interest and emerging infectious threats. The manufacturing processes for platform technologies will be adapted to maximize flexibility, increase stability, shelf life, and expand storage conditions. Efforts will also be adapted to maximize delivery flexibility through modifying delivery routes, which will allow for dose and reagent sparing.

Document Details

• Document Type: Project
• Publication Date: Oct 01, 2023
• Source ID: PT3_0603384BP_3_0400_PB_2023

Tags

Readers

• Critical Infrastructure Protection in CBRN and WMD Threats.