Lockheed Martin [LMT] said this week it won a $35 million contract from Space and Naval Warfare Systems (SPAWAR) Center Pacific for command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (C4ISR).
The indefinite-delivery-indefinite-quantity contract amounts to $35 million over five years. It covers C4ISR data exchange data throughout the space, air, surface, subsurface and unmanned sensor domains. Potential enhancements to existing systems include capabilities for monitoring all of the sensors in a given environment and displaying their output in real time. Other improvements possible include automating sensors to communicate with each other without human intervention (cross-cueing) and automating target recognition and classification, the company said in a statement.
“For the Navy, every platform is a sensor, and every sensor must be networked,” said Rob Smith, vice president of C4ISR for Information Systems and Global Solutions.
The contract will also include preliminary work on enhancing the Navy’s use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), including tasking, collection, processing, exploitation and dissemination of information.
“As the contract progresses, we will have more to share regarding UAV capabilities,” said Mike Worden, director of C4ISR integrated intelligence systems,
Lockheed Martin will build off of its previous work with SPAWAR, specifically the recently fielded Distributed Information Operations-System. The company began designing the tool in 2006 to connect “disparate Navy intelligence systems facilitating tactical data,” resulting in improved situational awareness, according to the release.
Worden said Lockheed Martin plans systems dependent on the Navy’s needs, but it will try to use open source tools when appropriate.
“Whenever feasible, we’ll ensure that those capabilities are developed using open source software, which can make it easier to add new technology and new applications and ultimately lowers the cost of development and sustainment,” he said.