Raytheon has received an $11.8 million contract from the U.S. Navy‘s Office of Naval Research to develop networking technologies that will work to boost sensor interconnectivity and integrated fires capacity for naval operations.
The company said Tuesday it will build the Communications and Interoperability for Integrated Fires system in an effort to increase situational awareness for force-wide integrated air and missile defense programs as well as help expeditionary forces communicate and share information via data links.
Colin Whelan, vice president of advanced technology at Raytheon’s integrated defense systems business, said that CIIF is designed to help battlefield commanders merge data from ground-, sea- and air-based sensors to defend critical assets.
The Navy also intends for CIIF to accelerate the dissemination of data across the battle force and flow of integrated fires information from existing and planned sensor networking systems installed onboard naval ships, aircraft and U.S. Marine Corps expeditionary systems and test sites.