Marvin Test Solutions is a small to medium enterprise of fewer than 100 employees based in California, producing innovative test equipment aimed at reducing the ‘footprint’ of gear required to perform armament and maintenance testing from the ramp to the depot-level workshops.
The company is part of the wider Marvin Group, which has been family-owned since its inception in the 1960s. CEO of the Marvin Test Solutions, Major General Stephen Sargeant (Ret.) was at Avalon to discuss opportunities for some of the equipment the company has to offer, and in particular the work is doing for its largest customer, Lockheed Martin, on the F-35 program.
Marvin has developed a series of test equipment, including the MTS-3060 SmartCan, which is a hand-held armament test device used to support legacy and “smart” weapons systems, including the Lockheed Martin AGM-114 Hellfire weapon used on Tiger ARH and Seahawk Romeo in the ADF.
The unit, which is also applicable to the F-35, is powered by four commercial AA batteries and replaces heavy and cumbersome test equipment in use today, making short-notice deployments easier to conduct and maintain.
“We are trying to make testing easy to use, both in a training sense as well as operational use and deployment,” Sargeant said. “We aim to use commercial off the shelf components wherever possible, but our equipment is always built to a Milspec standard.”
Sargeant said that discussions had been held with Army regarding the potential of the SmartCan to support the Tiger ARH fleet.
This article first appeared in Australian Defence Magazine VOL.23 No.4, April 2015