By DDN |
16 years ago |
11/13/2007

Northrop Grumman [NOC] will compete to design and install the Coast Guard’s Nationwide Automatic Identification System (NAIS), a two-way maritime digital data communication system that will improve safety and security along the nation’s littorals. A Request for Proposals for NAIS Increment 2 is expected to be released this month although the timing of this has slipped before. Northrop Grumman’s team members for the pursuit include Allied Technology Group, CACI International [CAI], Washington Group International, ICAN, Inc., Sweden’s True Heading AB, Broadpoint, Inc., and GTSI Corp. [GTSI]. “Our team has been preparing for NAIS for nearly three years, and we look forward to providing the Coast Guard with the capabilities to reach its vision,” says Mike Twyman, vice president of Northrop Grumman Mission Systems sector’s C3I Systems operating unit. NAIS will be based on the Automatic Identification System (AIS) technology, which is a maritime digital broadcast system that continually transmits and receives voiceless exchange of vessel data. AIS is used by the Coast Guard to help track large shipping vessels as they near the coast of the U.S. NAIS is being implemented in three phases. Increment 1 is being led by the Coast Guard and involves shore-based receive only coverage within the nation’s 55 highest priority critical ports and nine coastal areas by early next year. In Increment 2, which Northrop Grumman is pursuing, shore-based receive coverage will be expanded out to 50 nautical miles and a transmit capability will be provided out to 24 nm along the entire U.S. coastline. Increment 2 will have two separate procurements: a single source award for the design, development, integration, testing and implementation of the core NAIS capability to provide AIS coverage in three Coast Guard sectors; and a second procurement is expected to be a multiple award contract for remote site work and installations to establish nationwide coverage. A third phase will extend receive coverage out to 2,000 nm using satellite communication services and VHF services relying on offshore platforms and data buoys. The entire system is supposed to be fully implemented by 2014.