Raytheon has been selected by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to further develop an advanced airborne battlefield communications network.
The company received nearly $15.2 million for Phase II of the three-part Airborne Communications Node (ACN) demonstration. Raytheon received nearly $8 million in 1998 for initial research.
During Phase I, Raytheon, TRW and Lockheed Martin Sanders competitively developed concepts for ACN payloads. Either TRW or Sanders will be selected soon to join Raytheon in developing hardware.
Raytheon will focus on reconfigurable antennas, signal processing techniques and mobile and optical networking.
Phase II is expected to take 24 months. One contractor will then be selected for Phase III, to build and flight test an ACN payload. The US Air Force or the US Army could take ACN through into an acquisition programme.
Although the ultimate goal is to integrate the ACN payload on a Northrop Grumman Global Hawk-class unmanned air vehicle (UAV), initial flight evaluation will use a manned aircraft. A smaller, less-capable, ACN is envisioned for helicopters and tactical UAVs.
The payload would augment or replace existing intra-theatre and longer-range communications systems providing voice and data transmissions, militarised tactical paging, internet-like data networking, tactical common datalink interface and satellite communications support.
DARPA also wants ACN to perform signal intelligence (SIGINT) missions. Dewey Davis, Raytheon ACN programme manager, says "We can take the RF [radio frequency] front-end equipment and operate it in a surveillance mode for SIGINT operations." Raytheon's ACN can also conduct information warfare, which goes beyond the DARPA requirement.
Raytheon says DARPA has limited the weight to 410kg (900lb).
Source: Flight International
