THE PROBLEM: Severe combat conditions during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq highlighted the need for a portable guard tower. The U.S. Army and other armed forces needed a tower that could be quickly set up to protect them from a wide range of threats during counterinsurgency operations. Existing options were limited to low-tech guard towers of lumber and sandbags, which were not readily available and required significant manpower to build, or large concrete or prefabricated towers, which were expensive and required trucks and cranes. There was no logistically practical solution for remote deployment that provided adequate protection from bullets and explosives.  

THE SOLUTION: The U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) developed the Modular Protective System Guard Tower (MPS-GT), a lightweight, rapidly constructable tower that is more efficient, safer and more cost-effective than previous options. The versatile tower can be used as an elevated guard tower, a ground-level fighting position, an inspection station and other purposes to keep warfighters safe in remote, austere environments. At less than 8,000 pounds, the MPS-GT can be transported by helicopter, truck or warship to remote locations, where five workers can assemble the structure in an hour using only an instruction booklet — no tools, previous experience or training required. The MPS-GT is designed to be disassembled and re-used for years. The tower’s multi-layered armor panel system leverages ERDC’s existing MPS technology, which can be tailored to provide blast and ballistic protection that matches threat levels.  

THE TECH TRANSFER MECHANISM: The inventor spent nearly five years developing and optimizing the MPS-GT. To get the technology into military hands, it had to be thoroughly tested and approved. Over a two-year period, the towers were tested at multiple military bases by scores of soldiers in all environments; the experiment captured soldiers' feedback, range of motion and other human factors. In 2016, 32 towers were deployed to support the effort to defeat the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The towers made it possible to quickly establish U.S. military outposts in areas where the U.S. previously had no presence or infrastructure. At the time of this publication, all 32 towers are still deployed. For soldiers in those environments — who before this tower was available often had only bags of dirt stacked around them — it provides a much better level of protection and a feeling of security. The MPS-GT was patented in 2019. In 2023, Edwards Design & Fabrication Inc. worked with ERDC and intermediaries TechLink and ERDCWERX to sign a non-exclusive license for MPS-GT. Edwards has since acquired three more licenses for similar solutions. 

THE IMPACT: The MPS-GT has opened the door for faster deployments into remote combat environments. The technology’s impact on the strategic market is evident by the multiple purchases, inquiries and intellectual property license requests for the MPS-GT. Although MPS-GT was originally developed for defense, it became apparent that this technology also had broader applications. The towers can be used as military bases or command centers, diplomatic facilities at borders, communications centers after natural disasters, entry control and processing centers for refugee camps, security screening checkpoints for law enforcement and many more applications.