Navy Awards 18 Contracts for RF, Communication Technologies for Future Platforms
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An impressive 18 companies won indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity multiple award contracts to develop integration and management technology for radio frequency (RF) radar and communications functions on future naval platforms. The contracts are being awarded by the Office of Naval Research for its Integrated Topside (InTop) Program, which will develop a scalable family of electronic warfare, radar and communication equipment to support multiple classes of ships and other Navy platforms. Each contract has an ordering ceiling of between $50 million and $800 million.
InTop plans to reduce the number of topside equipment on Navy ships through the use of integrated, multi-function, multi-beam arrays…
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In the past, the topside design approach was based on developing separate systems and associated antennas for each individual RF function, which led to a significant increase in topside antennas and problems with electro-magnetic interference, radar cross section, and overall performance of ship electronic warfare (EW) and communication functions. The InTop vision is to enable innovation through a common set of open architecture hardware and software. That makes systems more interoperable, easier to swap out, and easier to build on. The result is a set of affordable and scalable systems that eventually perform many different functions.
The InTop Innovative Naval Prototype (INP) will use a teaming arrangement between Navy research, Navy acquisition and industry to define the RF form, fit, function and interface standards, pursue different array architectures, and support development of component technology to reduce array cost. ONR has completed site visits and held meetings with industry to present the InTop concepts and the modular open scalable architecture approach.
The list of companies receiving the InTop contracts includes a number of major defense firms:
- ATK Space Systems in Dayton, OH (N00014-09-D-0699);
- Argon ST in Fairfax, VA (N00014-09-D-0708);
- BAE Systems in Nashua, NH (N00014-09-D-0690);
- Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Broomfield, CO (N00014-09-D-0711);
- Boeing Co. in Seattle, WA (N00014-09-D-0705);
- Cobham Defense Systems in Landsdale, PA (N00014-09-D-0703);
- Colorado Engineering Inc. in Colorado Springs, CO (N00014-09-D-0707);
- DRS Signal Solutions Inc. in Gaithersburg, MD (N00014-09-D-0698);
- FTL Systems Inc. in Rochester, MN (N00014-09-D-0706);
- General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems in Fairfax, VA (N00014-09-D-0709);
- HYPRES Inc. in Elmsford, NY (N00014-09-D-0700);
- ITT Corp.’s Electronic Systems & Radar Systems in Van Nuys, CA (N00014-09-D-0704);
- ITT Force Protection Systems in Thousand Oaks, CA (N00014-09-D-0701);
- Lockheed Martin Corp. in Moorestown, NJ (N00014-09-D-0702);
- Northrop Grumman Corp. in Baltimore, MD (N00014-09-D-0710);
- Raytheon Co. in Tewksbury, MA (N00014-09-D-0696);
- S2 Corp. in Bozeman, MT (N00014-09-D-0697); and
- Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, TX (N00014-09-D-0691).
The 18 companies may compete for delivery orders under the terms and conditions of their InTop contracts.
