AFRL awards $8 million contract to Raytheon

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ROME, N.Y. (AFPN) --  The Air Force Research Laboratory has awarded a $7,996,471 contract to Raytheon Systems, Co., of El Segundo, Calif., for a surveillance sensor program.

The two-year contract is funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency of Arlington, Va., in support of its Integrated Sensor IS Structure, or ISIS, program. ISIS envisions a stratospheric airship operating as a surveillance platform more than 70,000 feet above the Earth.

The goal of the ISIS program is to develop a stratospheric airship-based autonomous unmanned sensor with years of persistence in surveillance and tracking of air and ground targets. It will have the capability to track the most advanced cruise missiles at a distance in excess of 370 miles and dismounted enemy combatants on the ground nearly 200 miles away.

Achieving this goal will require the development of technologies that enable extremely large, lightweight phased-array radar antennas to be integrated into an airship platform, according to laboratory officials. They said the major technical challenges include the development of ultra-lightweight antennas, antenna calibration technologies, power systems, station keeping approaches and airships that support extremely large antennas.

(Courtesy of Air Force Research Laboratory Public Affairs)