VESTLIFE

VESTLIFE project is part of the Preparatory Action on Defence Research (PADR), the Research Action Call for Action grant on the theme “Force Protection and Advanced Soldier Systems Beyond Current Programmes”, in the sub-theme “Tailored Blast, Ballistic and CBRN Protection of Military Personnel”. It was signed on 27 April 2018 and has a duration of 36 months. This project is led by AITEX (Spain), encompassing 5 other consortium participants from 5 countries: CITEVE (Portugal), Brapa Consultancy (The Netherlands), TECNALIA (Spain), Petroceramics (Italy) and FY-Composites (Finland).

This project aims to develop different types of ballistic protection armour with advanced features. The protection system will consist of different levels, mainly soft and hard armour. The optimal architecture of the materials on the body will encompass an established balance, based on both comfort experience and protection performance. A software model will provide information and the ability to define the garment architectures to be created at the integration stage and to validate the performance of the garments.

The technical work of the current project lies in the development of lighter and more modular ballistic protection, and therefore the possibility to increase the surface area covered without compromising comfort, and to customise the protection requirement for different areas of the body (adapting it to the risk level of the mission and the body’s vital organs). In parallel, CBRN sensors will be integrated for the detection of possible risks, in addition to the development of a predictive mathematical model of the possible risks expected in the different scenarios that may arise.