By Ann Roosevelt
As the Army refines its modernization strategy, a top Raytheon [RTN] official said the service should leverage the investment the nation has already made in technologies for the Future Combat System (FCS) program, as well as in upgrades for current platforms.
“One of the guiding principles that Raytheon is working–how do you take what the Army has now and make it better and affordable,” John Costello, Raytheon Network Centric Systems vice president strategic planning, told Defense Daily in a recent interview. “Our view is: Make sure you capitalize on the investment that you’ve made.”
Some technologies developed under the FCS program are ready or near-ready to be used, no matter where the Army ultimately decides to go on a platform, be it a new Ground Combat Vehicle, the Bradley, Stryker, Abrams or MRAP.
The Army is working on its vehicle strategy and where it is going in the future.
“From our perspective, we have to be prepared to assist the Army in integrating these capabilities on to what ever suite of platforms they decide on,” he said.
Raytheon’s Active Protection System (APS) was developed under FCS.
We’ve successfully got the APS system up to TRL level 6-7 in October and we’re working right now on some of the feedback we got from the Army on some of the specific things that they asked us to do, and that’s on the short-range countermeasure,” Costello said.
A lot of effort for the remainder of this year and into next year continues to integrate the radar system with the short-range and long-range countermeasures.
“In my view, if it’s not a revolutionary capability it’s near-revolutionary in terms of the force protection capability,” Costello said.
Another effort Raytheon is working on to leverage past investments is in the radars APS uses. About 30 sets of the radars have been produced. A set includes four radars and integration equipment. It’s called a multi-function system, he said. The radar detects rockets, artillery and mortars and individuals on the ground. Also, it can be linked into a larger sensor network.
“We’re looking at investment right now, he said. “These radars on the platforms can communicate with each other in a very reasonable bandwidth. The Army is discovering this.”
The Fires Center of Excellence has asked Raytheon to do some things in terms of counter-rocket artillery and mortar. The Advanced Warfighting Experiment at Ft. Benning, Ga., next year will demonstrate some of this effort.
“We have successfully networked the Infantry Brigade Combat Team, so that if you’re a TOW gunner you can share your information with another TOW gunner or the command and control system. We’re working on putting a Javelin gunner in the network.”
Raytheon is also networking different battlefield sensors for shared situational awareness.
“It is very, very, very, powerful and we’ve taken it up to a level where we have started to integrate some of the capability packages that the FCS program is bringing to the table,” he said.
Raytheon works the common electro-optical sensor and is the contractor that won the third-generation Forward Looking Infrared contract, so it is incrementally affording the Army upgrade capabilities.
“We were going to do this anyhow,” he said. Even if FCS went off on schedule on track, met all its milestones, it was never going to equip the whole force. So we’ve been working on the rest of the force and applying that technology now with the uncertainty of where FCS is going, applying that in a broader context.
All of the shared data includes targeting quality data. It reduces the sensor to shooter timeline significantly. For example, no longer does a soldier have to do a call for fires manually.
“Never before on the battlefield has this part of the battlefield been provided with this level of situational awareness,” he said.
In another area, Raytheon is one of the contractors for the Ground Soldier Ensemble, so it is working on the modernization of the individual soldier, and how to bring the individual into the network at the right time and place.
Raytheon is also the Marine Expeditionary Rifle Squad contractor.
“In a broad sense, what we’re really trying to do is how do you make things more affordable for an Army that has budget pressures, that is fighting two wars, that’s got to provide for soldiers and their families, that’s got provide for wounded warriors, that’s got to grow its force structure.”
Raytheon also produces the older AN/TPQ-36 and AN/TPQ-37 radars.
Leveraging the investment, Costello said a few years ago the company went to the Fires Center of Excellence and said it had designed a way to network those radars so they share information on the battlefield. It was basically focused on the counter-rocket artillery and mortar mission, which obviously could be expanded.
The Army provided the company contract money for reliability, maintainability improvement (RMI) programs for the AN/TPQ-36 and AN/TPQ-37.
The newer AN/MPQ-64 Sentinel radar also is being modernized.
“We think the Sentinel radar can be both an air defense and a fire support radar and we’re investing in technologies that are going to help us do that in the company,” he said.
Additionally, Raytheon has improved the Enhanced Position Location Reporting System (EPLRS) radios.
“We did this because again, even if [Joint Tactical Radio System] JTRS was on schedule and met all its objectives there was still going to be a great part of the force that was not going to be equipped. How do you equip that force at cost?”
The EPLRS 4G radio can fulfill many of the JTRS requirements.
“The Army is looking at different options right now in terms of how do you afford to network the force,” he said. “We developed another radio, MAINGATE, a mobile ad hoc networking capability.” This Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency effort allows the Army to use existing communications equipment in a more integration fashion, he said.
“The leaders that I talk to appreciate the value of applying a network overlay to existing platforms or sensors, linking them into the joint arena,” Costello said. “That saves money, it saves investment, and it frankly, it allows you to do all you can do with what you have. My view is that’s the position that the Army is going to be forced into because of the limited modernization money that they’re going to have. So industry is obligated, and Raytheon has taken this challenge on is how can we help the Army do more with what it has.” n