MAD-FIRES: Multi-Azimuth Defense Fast Intercept Round Engagement System

Attacks by unmanned vehicles, missiles, small planes, fast in-shore attack craft and other platforms pose a perennial, evolving and potentially lethal threat to ships and other maritime vessels. 

The escalating risks posed by these ever-morphing threats demand that vessels have access to defensive capabilities at the leading edge of air and surface combat technologies. In particular, current close-range gun systems would greatly benefit from an ability to engage multiple and diverse targets coming from a range of directions and do so rapidly and with high precision.

To help meet these needs and greatly enhance maritime vessels’ survivability in contested environments, DARPA has created the Multi-Azimuth Defense—Fast Intercept Round Engagement System (MAD-FIRES) program. 

The goal of the program is to design and develop technologies associated with a medium-caliber guided projectile that would combine the guidance, precision and accuracy generally afforded by missiles with the speed, rapid-fire capability and large ammunition capacity afforded by bullets.

MAD-FIRES aims to advance the state-of-the-art in defensive gun systems by creating a new, low-cost technological foundation for guided, gun-launched projectiles. Specifically, MAD-FIRES aims to incorporate enhanced ammunition rounds able to alter their flight path in real time to stay on target, and a capacity to continuously target, track and engage multiple fast-approaching targets simultaneously and re-engage any targets that survive initial engagement.

Envisioned benefits of MAD-FIRES for future systems include:

• Improved real-time defense against evolving air and surface combat threats, facilitated by:
  • Extreme precision
  • An ability to defend against greater numbers of simultaneous and diverse attacks
• Decreased per-engagement costs by a factor of 10 or more
• Potential future applicability to air and ground platforms