The U.S. Office of Naval Research recently awarded Raytheon an $11.8 million contract for work on networking technologies that would provide greater sensor interconnectivity and enhance integrated fires capabilities for naval operations.
Communications and Interoperability for Integrated Fires, or CIIF, will advance situational awareness for force-wide integrated air and missile defense.
New and existing ships, planes, UAVs and expeditionary forces will communicate and share critical information across data links. These links connect one platform to another via radio frequency to transmit and receive digital information.
“CIIF brings the Navy closer to full spectrum awareness and supports distributed lethality,” said Colin Whelan , vice president of advanced technology at Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems. “Battlefield commanders need instant access to as much information as possible to protect critical assets and save lives. CIIF ties together that information – from land, sea and air-based sensors, across the services – in ways never before possible.”