Raytheon Systems has teamed with its sister company, Raytheon Aircraft, and unmanned air vehicle specialists Teledyne Ryan Aeronautical and Aurora Flight Sciences to compete for the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV) advanced technology demonstration programme. The team also includes GDE Systems, Honeywell and Primex. Raytheon is one of four prime contractors awarded $4 million Phase 1 study contracts. One team will be selected in 1999 for a $110 million award to flight test two UCAV demonstrators in 2002. Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman are all bidding for the technology demonstrator programme. The demonstration programme is intended to examine whether UCAV technology is approaching the required maturity to allow such systems to be operationally deployed early in the next century.
Source: Flight International
