Weapons and Protective Systems Program

The goal of this program is to conduct research to develop performance standards, guidelines and reports to advance the technologies of weapons, protective equipment, and ammunition in support of the goals and priorities of law enforcement, corrections, and criminal justice agencies.

OLES' Weapons and Protective Systems program provides ongoing technical support and research for the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) standard for ballistic-resistant body armor (bullet-resistant vests), which OLES first developed for NIJ in 1972. The body armor program is part of NIJ's successful Law Enforcement and Corrections Standards and Testing Program, through which companies may have their products voluntarily certified as compliant with the standard. Ballistic-resistant body armor has been credited with saving more than 3000 lives, and the program's evaluations of new materials and ballistic threats and its revisions of the standard help ensure the continued effectiveness of this technology. The Weapons and Protective Systems program also develops and supports other equipment performance standards vital to the safety of law enforcement and corrections personnel, including stab-resistant body armor; ballistic helmets; riot helmets and face shields; metallic handcuffs; and firearms.

In recent years, the Weapons and Protective Systems program area has focused heavily on the ballistic-resistant body armor program, providing standards development services and technical support to the compliance testing program, conducting and overseeing research leading to improvements in the standards, participating in technical and practitioner communities, establishing collaborations with other contributors, addressing emerging armor issues, and recommending improvements to the standards and associated certification programs.

• Provided technical leadership for the Attorney General's Body Armor Safety Initiative.
• Determined degradation mechanisms responsible for diminished ballistic performance of PBO-containing body armor in field service.
• Drafted a series of reports for the National Institute of Justice that described findings related to the PBO-containing body armor performance assessment.
• Hosted a Body Armor Workshop to inform practitioners and the body armor industry about activities being conducted under the Body Armor Safety Initiative, to discuss ideas under consideration for the next version of the body armor standard, and to solicit feedback from the participants.
• Developed test and measurement methods for assessing changes in PBO and other ballistic materials. Methods are based on assessing certain chemical and mechanical properties.
• Developed specific recommendations for improving the NIJ body armor standard.
• Developed an engineering solution to establish an artificial aging protocol for soft body armor that will be used to pre-condition body armor before ballistic certification testing, thus providing increased confidence that the body armor will maintain intended ballistic performance levels after it is pressed into field service.
• Initiated the establishment of a robust conformity assessment program for body armor, but which could also be applied to other equipment certification programs.
• Developed improved test methodologies for assessing ballistic helmets.