DARPA Taps Raytheon to Improve Infantry Squads

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DARPA, the U.S. Department of Defense's advanced research and technology branch, has awarded a $2.5 million, Phase One contract to Raytheon Company to develop new technologies to boost the effectiveness and safety of infantry squads.

The contract was awarded under DARPA's Squad X Core Technologies (SXCT) program, which is designed to speed development of new, lightweight, integrated systems to give infantry squads greater awareness, adaptability and flexibility in complex environments. The program will also enable dismounted soldiers and marines to more easily understand and control their mission environments.

"We are working to enable ground troops to more effectively operate in urban and complex environments," said Tom Bussing, Raytheon vice president of Advanced Missile Systems. "Raytheon's experience as the systems integrator for DARPA's Persistent Close Air Support program, which offered distributed coordination between air and ground forces, will provide an ideal starting point to help squads effectively perform manned and unmanned teaming."

Raytheon is a prime contractor for research into technologies for squad autonomy. SXCT will seek to give squad members real-time knowledge of their own and teammates' locations to less than 20 feet (6 meters) in GPS-denied environments. The new technologies will collaborate with embedded unmanned air and ground systems.

Raytheon, leading an industry team that includes Draper Labs and Torc Robotics, brings its expertise in overall systems integration, weapons and distributed air-to-ground processing to the program. 

About Raytheon

Raytheon Company, with 2014 sales of $23 billion and 61,000 employees worldwide, is a technology and innovation leader specializing in defense, civil government and cybersecurity markets throughout the world. With a history of innovation spanning 93 years, Raytheon provides state-of-the-art electronics, mission systems integration and other capabilities in the areas of sensing; effects; and command, control, communications and intelligence systems, as well as cybersecurity and a broad range of mission support services.