Raytheon [RTN] announced it is developing a smaller, lightweight version of its Multi-Spectral Targeting System (MTS) sensor to add exportable capabilities to its line of electro-optical and infrared sensing products.
The Compact MTS will be a 12-inch turret and weigh less than 60 pounds, while having the same imaging and targeting capabilities as previous versions such as the MTS-A, MTS-B, CSP and AN/DAS-4.
The U.S. defense contractor’s sensors provide military operations with capabilities to gather data from visual and infrared spectra in the form of full motion video. Raytheon’s Compact MTS will follow suit with the rest of its product line and include high definition sensors to pick up information from invisible to long wave infrared, a laser target marker, automated bore sight alignment and a diode pump laser designator/rangefinder.
“The Compact MTS delivers capabilities of sensors nearly twice its size at half the weight, making it ideally suited for platforms where space is at premium,” Vice President of Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Systems for Raytheon’s Space and Airborne Systems Roy Azevedo said in a statement on Monday. “We’ve taken more than 4 million combat flight hours of experience and packed them into a compact turret.”
Raytheon received a $90 million first-lot production contract on April 29, 2016 to supply the Air Force with its MTS product line.