Brenda Marie Rivers
Four companies have received fixed-price delivery orders worth $1.5M combined to integrate and test sonar technologies for the U.S. Navy’s unmanned surface vehicle program.
Northrop Grumman, Peraton, Advanced Acoustics Concepts and Arete Associates won the awards under the "payloads" functional area of a potential $982M indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for USV Family of Systems support services, the Navy said Friday.
The branch awarded the initial $903,625 order to Arete Associates to perform volume risk-reduction analysis of the AN/AQS-20 surface-towed minehunting sonar platform.
All four awardees will perform test and verification operations, trade studies, obsolescence reviews, technical data package analysis and modification planning activities for future USV sonar systems under the agreement.
The delivery orders are meant to inform the development of contract requirements for the AN/AQS-20 sonar, which will be integrated into the Navy’s mine countermeasures mission package for littoral combat ships, the service noted.
In February, the Navy selected 40 awardees for the USV contract that covers six functional areas such as payloads, logistics and sustainment, mission support systems, autonomy and vehicle control systems, ashore and host platform elements and nonpayload sensors.
