BAE Systems Receives Contract from U.S. Army for HEADS

BAE Sys­tems Receives $17 Mil­lion Con­tract from U.S. Army for Head­borne Ener­gy Analy­sis and Diag­nos­tic Sys­tems (HEADS) Sen­sors
PHOENIX, Ari­zona — BAE Sys­tems has received an ini­tial order of $17 mil­lion from the U.S. Army for Head­borne Ener­gy Analy­sis and Diag­nos­tic Sys­tems (HEADS) to help address com­bat-relat­ed trau­mat­ic brain injuries (TBI), which accord­ing to many med­ical pro­fes­sion­als are fast becom­ing a sig­na­ture injury of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Head­borne Ener­gy Analy­sis and Diag­nos­tic Sys­tem (HEADS) Source: BAE Systems

The mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar award is part of an indef­i­nite delivery/indefinite quan­ti­ty con­tract with a max­i­mum val­ue of $105 mil­lion. BAE Sys­tems was one of two con­trac­tors selected. 

Designed to bet­ter mon­i­tor sol­diers and help iden­ti­fy their risk lev­els for com­bat-relat­ed TBIs, BAE Sys­tems intro­duced its first HEADS sen­sor to the mil­i­tary in 2008. Since then, near­ly 7,000 of the company’s HEADS units have been field­ed to the U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps‑a tes­ta­ment to BAE Sys­tems’ com­mit­ment to inte­grat­ing inno­v­a­tive life­sav­ing tech­nolo­gies into sur­viv­abil­i­ty prod­ucts for troops. 

With the new order, thou­sands of the company’s Gen­er­a­tion II HEADS hel­met sen­sors will be pro­duced and fit­ted inside the com­bat hel­mets for U.S. troops serv­ing abroad. 

“Diag­nos­ing mild to mod­er­ate com­bat-relat­ed TBIs can be chal­leng­ing. For exam­ple, fol­low­ing an explo­sion from a road­side bomb, sol­diers will some­times con­tin­ue with their mis­sion, unaware that the con­cus­sion from the blast may have lin­ger­ing effects,” said Joe Colt­man, vice pres­i­dent of BAE Sys­tems’ Per­son­nel Pro­tec­tion Sys­tems busi­ness. “With the Gen­er­a­tion II HEADS sen­sor, even if the injury isn’t obvi­ous, once the sen­sor col­lects data indi­cat­ing a blast has exceed­ed a cer­tain thresh­old, a LED light locat­ed on the sen­sor and will be acti­vat­ed and begin blink­ing, sig­ni­fy­ing to sol­diers that they may have sus­tained a con­cus­sion war­rant­i­ng imme­di­ate attention.” 

In addi­tion to alert­ing sol­diers of pos­si­ble con­cus­sions, the HEADS smart sen­sor is designed to pro­vide med­ical pro­fes­sion­als with impor­tant data that may help deter­mine the sever­i­ty of a pos­si­ble TBI. “With our Gen­er­a­tion II HEADS sen­sor, we’re pro­vid­ing med­ical teams with a valu­able diag­nos­tic tool that uti­lizes radio fre­quen­cy tech­nol­o­gy,” added Colt­man. “With our new ’smarter’ sen­sor, if a sol­dier is exposed to a blast, pos­si­bly sus­tain­ing a con­cus­sion, not only will the HEADS visu­al dis­play be trig­gered at the time of the event, but once the sol­dier enters a spec­i­fied area, such as for­ward oper­at­ing base or din­ing facil­i­ty, a series of strate­gi­cal­ly placed anten­nae will scan all avail­able HEADS units and send data to a com­put­er, iden­ti­fy­ing any sol­diers who may have sus­tained a blast-relat­ed brain injury.” 

The sen­sor itself is small, light­weight and can be secured inside vir­tu­al­ly any com­bat hel­met. Although imper­cep­ti­ble to the wear­er, it is designed to con­tin­u­ous­ly col­lect crit­i­cal, poten­tial­ly life­sav­ing data, includ­ing impact loca­tion, mag­ni­tude, dura­tion, blast pres­sures, angu­lar and lin­ear accel­er­a­tions as well as the exact times of sin­gle or mul­ti­ple blast events. That infor­ma­tion is then secure­ly stored until it can be quick­ly down­loaded and ana­lyzed by med­ical teams using a sim­ple USB or wire­less connection. 

Com­pat­i­ble with most hel­mets, the HEADS sen­sor is unob­tru­sive and won’t inter­fere with addi­tion­al hel­met-mount­ed equip­ment sol­diers may need, such as gog­gles and oth­er sensors. 

Deliv­er­ies on the ini­tial Gen­er­a­tion II HEADS order are expect­ed to begin in April 2011, and be com­plet­ed by July 2011. 

BAE Sys­tems is a lead­ing provider of sol­dier pro­tec­tive and load car­riage equip­ment in the Unit­ed States, pro­duc­ing a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of the nation’s body armor, tac­ti­cal vests, com­bat hel­mets and load car­ry­ing sys­tems. Not only is the com­pa­ny focused on the design, devel­op­ment and pro­duc­tion of lead­ing edge sur­viv­abil­i­ty prod­ucts, its inte­gra­tion of advanced mate­ri­als into man­u­fac­tur­ing, rig­or­ous prod­uct test­ing, and field tri­als sup­port the company’s focus on the men and women who serve in the armed forces. 

About BAE Sys­tems
BAE Sys­tems is a glob­al defense, secu­ri­ty and aero­space com­pa­ny with approx­i­mate­ly 107,000 employ­ees world­wide. The Com­pa­ny deliv­ers a full range of prod­ucts and ser­vices for air, land and naval forces, as well as advanced elec­tron­ics, secu­ri­ty, infor­ma­tion tech­nol­o­gy solu­tions and cus­tomer sup­port ser­vices. In 2009 BAE Sys­tems report­ed sales of £22.4 bil­lion (US$ 36.2 billion). 

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion, please contact 

Jen­nifer Robin­son, BAE Sys­tems
Tel: +1 513 341 4073 Mobile: +1 513 833 5389
jennifer.s.robinson@baesystems.com

www.baesystems.com

Press release
BAE Systems