Monday, January 19, 2009

BAE Systems scores $5.9M to help make better jammers

By Mass High Tech staff

BAE Systems has landed $5.9 million from the U.S. Navy for the development of jamming equipment, according to the U.S. Department of Defense.

The deal is part of a larger Next Generation Jammer project spread among BAE Systems, Raytheon Co., ITT Corp. and Northrop Grumman Systems Corp. The four companies will develop components of signal jamming systems.

Work will be performed in BAE Systems’ Nashua, N.H., facility; Raytheon’s Goleta, Calif., facility; ITT’s Clifton, N.J., facility and Northrop Grumman’s Bethpage, N.Y., facility.

Last week, MIT researchers announced they are developing a robotic forklift that could be used in war zones. BAE Systems staff, among staff from other companies, are involved in the project.

In October, BAE Systems received $66 million in orders from the U.S. Army for thermal weapon sights. TWS mounted on rifles and machine guns enable vision and target tracking in darkness, fog and obscured environments. To date, the defense firm has total orders for the thermal sights worth $400 million, contracted through a five-year agreement with the U.S Army’s Research and Development Command Acquisition Center.

In September, BAE Systems’ National Security Solutions unit was awarded a $7.16 million contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to develop a tool to rapidly search through video archives based on content.

BAE Systems is the U.S. subsidiary of United Kingdom-based BAE Systems plc (LON: BA) and is headquartered in Rockville, Md. BAE Systems plc employs 97,500 people worldwide.