Rapid deployable ballistic barriers based on airbag systems

The investigations included an outline of the threat scenarios which identified a list of situations where such a ballistic protection kit was urgently needed for improving security of individuals ending up with specifications. Predominantly, 2-3 persons have to be protected against the attack by hand guns and hand grenade and enable a counter attack from this safe area. The ballistic protection was established by a multitude of textiles layers made out of aramid fibres. The fibre weaving applying various methods, treatment by lamination and their combination was optimized by measuring the energy reduction of various layers to achieve best resistance against the impact of the selected ammunition. For the inflation of the ballistic package new approaches for the gas generator formulation and manufacturing techniques were investigated and successfully tested. This new composition combined pyrotechnic hot gas production with ablative cooling to provide cool gases for safely deploying the folded protecting shield stabilized by inflated tubular structure. Finally, all components were combined in a demonstrator which was tested on a shooting range. The results showed that the ballistic shield deployed in a short time and withstood the demanded impact of bullets, fragments and blasts according to the specifications. The current weight of the ballistic package has still to be reduced for which effective proposals are to be made.